High Season for Spies (KTA)
by temarcia
Summary: When the chain of strange incidents in the Autobot base does not seem to break off, someone has to find the source of all that trouble. The commander of the Iacon Special Forces starts his investigation. But can he stand up to his most cunning and ruthless opponent? Read to find out! This is a spy-themed story taking place at the beginning on the Great War.
1. Enter the crime scene

It was the third incident of this kind already.

The first one had been an ambush on an artifact transport between the Iacon archives and the Macron Gamma base. It had been obvious, that either a traitor or an as of yet undiscovered spy had leaked vital intelligence to the Decepticons. Not so obvious had been where to search for said leak. The Autobots in the Iacon Archives section had spent the following orns answering a lot of painful questions. And security had been running background check after background check on all involved personnel, while a specialist from high command had taken the security footage and the communications logs apart for any hints of who had been responsible. Surprise inspections in the quarters had only brought a lot of illegally brewed highgrade, and a few contraband items to the light of the day. But now it seemed that the culprit had never been hiding in Iacon in the first place.

The second incident had been a prison break, rendering an entire cell block of the Macron Gamma base unusable. And now, not even a decaorn later, four Autobots had been killed during an attack on a supply convoy returning to the Macron Gamma base with building materials meant to repair the damaged prison.

Three incidents, and all of them were connected to the Macron Gamma base. This was the reason why a mostly white mech with a yellowish helm and a few blue highlights now stepped out of the troop-transporter into the shuttle bay of the Macron Gamma base – after being ambushed the last time he had visited driving by altmode, Counter Balance was not going to risk a repeat performance. Besides this time he was not on a secret transport mission so his arrival could be more official. In fact a small welcome committee from the base was already waiting to greet him.

General Quasar, whom Counter Balance knew back from his days at the Iacon's Military Academy, was as always shiny and polished to the point that his aegean-blue armor could be used as a mirror. Next to him stood the Master Tactician, an elder mech with a crafty-looking faceplate. Some bots were calling him the Old Turbo-fox since his clever strategies had saved the orn for the Autobot troops more than one time in the past. A step behind him waited his assistant – a young and promising officer named Outride. This one had started his military career just recently, and yet he had shown some bravery in the battle at the Sonic Canyons. Two low-ranked soldiers were the escort, one of them being a femme actually.

Counter gave a small sigh. To let a femme guard the base's elite? Who could have been this irresponsible? And from the rank insignia… She was not low ranked as he had first assumed at all, she was actually an officer - the chief of security? Counter inwardly groaned. He hated having to work with femmes. It really wasn't helpful that his most incompetent ops team consisted entirely out of femmes. He still wasn't sure how that team had managed to actually save his aft from the Cons.

And this thought brought him back to the here and now. Someone on this base had told the Decepticons that he had been picking up an artifact to take back to the archives and that he, a spec ops commander would transport it personally. The Cons had wasted no time to capture him, which left him at the non-existing mercy of Shockwave. His rescue had nothing to do with any loyalty of his team to him. Alpha Trion had ordered his extraction, had it not been for that he'd now been an empty armor-shell with a wiped processor. So whoever the traitor was, this betrayal was personal.

As soon as Counter walked over to the Autobots who had awaited him the lower-ranked soldiers saluted to him in the usual fashion. He nodded toward them dismissively but not before greeting General Quasar.

"I'm happy to see you again, Counter," the general said, shaking his servo. "Especially after what you have been through since your last visit. It's good to have you back in my base."

"There was a time when I thought I would never be able to return, General, but looks like I still have a few duties to fulfill. So how are the repairs coming along?"

"Slowly, we are still not sure why the Cons targeted that supply convoy. We have doubled the guards to pick up the next delivery but they didn't even get to see the wingtip of an Eradicon."

"I'm sure we can work something out with setting up more surveillance along the transport route. We will have this base in perfect condition in no time."

"Didn't you bring your assistant today?"

"No, Neon is still on monitor duty as punishment for the last stunt he pulled. "

"How did he even manage to insult Ultra Magnus of all mecha?"

And so on it went. The other officers behind the General were already getting twitchy. However the exchange of empty platitudes was necessary, unfortunately. General Quasar knew of course, that Counter was not here to inspect the repairs of the prison level, nor was he here to coordinate the supply transports between bases. But the rank and file didn't need to know about the investigation, maybe then they would be freer to share what bits of information they had.

Standing behind the Master Tactician, officer Outride did his best to catch and remember every word that the commander of Special Operations forces was saying. The big, white-framed mech seemed to know General Quasar, as they had an almost friendly conversation, which was quite unexpected in the case of a strict and serious mech like Quasar. This was unfortunate though, Outride had really hoped to overhear some valuable information, but so far there had only been rumors of how Counter Balance had got saved by his best team of special-agents. The stories were as unbelievable as the one about the bot who had stolen the intel with the attack plans on Crystal City. And to be honest, Outride didn't believe in super-agents, no – he believed in the sleeper agents and spies that both factions had for sure. After all he was one of them and he knew how a small action could affect the fate of many lives. The fact that Commander Counter Balance was still functioning must have been the work of some deep-cover agent among Shockwave's troops, no doubt. All of his hard work had been wasted. This mech was not supposed to be here, he was not even supposed to be online anymore.

His commanding officer's voice brought him back to reality.

"Outride will show you your quarters, Counter."

Hearing his own name mentioned, the tactician's assistant straightened up and got ready to play the helpful and dutiful soldier as he always did.

"This way, sir!" He gestured in the south-wing direction, waiting for Counter Balance to follow him.

They walked down the corridors silently, only Counter Balance as the newcomer getting a few curious glances from mechas who were hurrying to their shifts. So Outride actually startled when the other suddenly spoke: "I heard you survived the attack on the supply convoy."

This topic was not entirely unexpected, so Outride had an answer prepared. He had had to answer a lot of questions after his 'rescue' already after all.

"I am still not sure how. One of the guards said they spotted something unusual and then suddenly those seekers were on us out of nowhere. Almost a decaorn in the medbay and I was the lucky one who survived."

"Very lucky, indeed." And with that the silent march went on until Outride could drop the Intelligence officer at his temporary quarters.

Counter locked the door behind himself and cast a casual look around in the small and empty room before he went over to the utilitarian berth. A sweep for monitoring and listening devices would probably be necessary later, for now he wanted to catch up on some recharge.  
But recharge was elusive and he couldn't help but to chew on what he knew about the last incident once more.

It had been a very strange 'raid', as nothing had been stolen. It didn't even look like the seekers had touched the supplies. Had they been in the area to accomplish something different and the convoy had just interrupted them? Or had this been an act of revenge? He would have to grill this mech Outride for more information, but also that so called security femme.

oOo

Meanwhile Outride went back to his workplace to help the Master Tactician with filing the reports. The old cycle-former was looking for some data-discs, trying to reach the box with them from the highest shelf. His assistant, being taller, handed it to his boss without a problem. Then he sat down at the desk and looked at all the datapads with a flat expression.

"Is something bothering you, Outride?" The Master Tactician asked polity, apparently noticing the change in his usually energetic and motivated attitude.

"No, Sir, it's nothing," the younger mech assured his boss but the Old Turbo-fox was not that easily deceived.

"Was it something that commander Counter Balance told you? That mech is not exactly an expert at small-talk, you know."

Outride ex-vented loudly, while silently cursing himself for letting his superior see a glimpse of his mind.

"The commander just asked me about that Cons' ambush. He said I was very lucky. And I was, wasn't I?"

The old mech patted him on the shoulder plate in a reassuring gesture.

"Even we tacticians make mistakes sometimes, mistakes that have heavy consequences. But there's no point in dwelling on the past. Learn from it, yes, but don't let it overshadow your present."

Outride thought about that for a moment. Maybe it was a mistake indeed to kill off those convoy members just to talk to the Con femme who he barely knew and cared for very little. And what did she give him in return? Just a thrilling memory mixed with the bitter feeling of dissatisfaction. Now he had a spec. ops. commander sniffing around, asking about those events. But at least the Master Tactician seemed to feel sorry for him, Outride was sure that the old mech liked him enough to take his side in case of Counter Balance trying to blame the supply mission failure on him.

"Thank you, Sir," he replied bringing a small smile to his face-plate, "I won't dwell on it, I promise."

ooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOooOoo

Author's note:

Ok, guys, this is gonna be a thrilling (hopefully) spy story about the Spec Ops. Commander called Counter Balance and his investigation at the Macron Gamma military base. Most of the main character are OCs but the canon character will be either mentioned or appearing in later chapters.

I'll try to update every weekend. Please, leave your reviews!

This story is also a sort-of a sequel to my other story to "Through the Bars" which you might (but you don't have to) read too.


	2. Meister's methods

The security hub was almost deserted at this late jour. A single femme was sitting at the main terminal, once in a while casting a glance at the monitors, which were showing no motion in the corridors. As the security chief it was her duty to know about everyone who stepped a pede into the base. Theoretically it was illegal to look up the high security profiles of superiors, but one couldn't be careful enough and it was in the middle of the night so it was unlikely her little hack would be discovered. Low-Key parsed through the information and frowned. How had this mech, Counter Balance, ever been selected for Spec Ops? She was so engrossed by her reading, that she almost missed the door to the security hub opening. Hastily she closed the document and turned in her chair.

"Oh, hello Outride. What are you doing here this late?"

The bright-green grounder entered the room and greeted her with a faint smile.

"How are you Low-Key?" he asked politely. "Still on a shift too, I see? The whole base had a busy orn because of that inspection, I guess?"

"If you call standing behind the general while he was doing smalltalk 'being busy'. I really don't see what the point of that exercise was," she replied while trying to distract the mech from the screen behind her back.

Outride seemed to find that pretty funny because he actually chuckled softly covering his mouth with his closed servo.

"Well, I was standing there too and you're right, that was pretty pointless but what I meant were all the drills and preparation before that. Do they think the Cons will break in here to capture Counter Balance again?" he joked. "Anyway, the Master Tacticians sent me. You have some data we'd like to include in our database, here's the list of the files."

Outride handed the femme the datapad and waited for her to read it. His blue optics scanned the place for any interesting details. He had noticed how Low-Key had reacted when he showed up. Could she be hiding something? But what?

Low-Key leaned a bit forward to take the datapad. She really hoped that whatever was on the screen right now looked innocent enough. While she had closed that specific datafile, it would still be kind of obvious she was looking into a classified folder and she was berating herself for that blunder.

"With our recent performance I can't say I'm taking offense, if the higher ups want to be extra careful. Not sure what the Cons would want with him though, his unit doesn't have the best reputation and if the rumors are to be believed he has trouble even keeping a bunch of soldiers under control."

Outride raised his eyebrow.

"You seem to know a lot about this mech."

"It's not every day after all that someone escapes Shockwave. I admit I got a bit curious about it. But aside from rumors there really wasn't much about it. I really doubt that a battalion of Wreckers attacked Shockwave's prison, just to break out a single mech – besides the building is still standing," she waved that off.

From what she just said, and what was more important – how she had said that, it looked like Low-Key indeed had given a thought or two to Counter's case. And from the look of her monitor screen she might have gone further than to just think about him. Outride was almost sure that the damn femme had somehow gained access to the top-secret database with profiles of the Autobot special agents. He would sacrifice his right servo to possess those profiles and sent them to Commander Starscrem. He'd be a real hero, if only he was able to distract Low-Key for long enough to get that data copied.

"What do you mean by that?" he inquired hoping for the femme to go on and on, giving him time to come up with some plan. "Don't tell me you suspect something?"

"Ah, Outride, if I said something like that I was thinking some mech probably needs to have a bunch of very influential friends in high positions, to get a special treatment, because I can't see how he accomplished anything else that would justify it, then it would be real bad slander about an Autobot officer, wouldn't you agree?"

"You know, I've heard something similar to that about myself few times. And yes, that is a pretty bad thing to say. Commander Counter Balance is a famous veteran of the off-world wars, he surely deserves better to be left to rot, if not worse, in the Con's prison." Outride acted as if femme's words had hurt or offend him. "So what about that data? Can you upload it for me now?"

She glanced again at the datapad, now obviously focused on to business. "Sure, sure, done in a breem. Preeez, I didn't think you were that much of a fan of him."

She hastily scurried over to another console to complete the assignment.

That was his chance! Low-Key turned away, busy with the data Master Tactician had asked for. Her computer screen was left unwatched and within the reach of his servo. Wasting no time, Outride clicked at the folder. It really was a list of the Iacon-Archive-division special agents! With a hammering fuelpump and glowing optics he scanned through the names: Vault, Temperance, Blackjack, Mayday – they weren't telling him anything but surely Decepticon counterintelligence would be able to make good use of that knowledge. Just how to copy those files? He looked around, maybe between the many discs and datapads lying about, he'd spot a portable drive. And lucky for Outride, there really was one! The moment he spotted it however, Low-Key turned back to him though. The mech froze in terror, she had caught him in front of her screen.

"Hey! What are you doing! That is confidential!" She hastily pushed him aside and closed the file before she turned the console off and faced him again.

"I just..." He started, about to make some excuse but suddenly it hit him, it was highly confidential indeed, she shouldn't be able to access those folders. "Wait an astrosecond," he changed his strategy, "those were Spec Ops agents, Low-Key. You can't just check them out. That is illegal!"

"I don't think that is any of your business." She huffed "But there are exceptions." If in question, bluffing and pretending to be in the right usually helped. "Now here is the data your boss wanted and I think you have other things to do and other places to be, while I take care of the base security."

And before Outride could get another word in he was outside the security hub and the door looked in front of his faceplate.

Outride didn't know how that had happened but the femme just kicked him out in less than a split astrosecond. It didn't go how he had planned and now he wondered, if he should maybe report in Low-Key's messing with the Spec Ops files to General Quasar. But if he did that, and it turned out that she had the permission to do so, the situation would become very awkward. Was it worth the risk? Outride wasn't sure.

Deciding to forget about it for now, he went back to his quarters. The data for the Master Tactician was needed only tomorrow, so he had the entire night to check and copy it before handing it over.

oOo

The next morning Counter Balance rolled off the berth early. He hadn't recharged particularly well. The idea to be on the same base as a traitor did really not help to ease his mind.

Anyway mentally he went through his 'to-do' list for the orn. First he needed to take a look at the actual damage done to the base and the progress of the repairs. He frowned as he read through the report again while he walked down the busy corridors. The prison block had been hit by two heat seeking missiles fired by Autobot troops, missing their intended targets. He would have to talk with the mecha who had fired them later and see, if there was camera footage of the battle. Then there was the question, how the first bunch of prisoners had escaped anyway before the fight had started.

Finally arriving at his destination, he made his way over to the two breaches in the wall that had been boarded up with makeshift metal plates so far, the construction crew focusing on stabilizing the walls with extra support struts for now.

One of the missiles had detonated in a section of the corridor, 3 guards and 2 prisoners had been injured but no Decepticons had escaped through this hole. The second missile had shredded a long hole into the wall before finally detonating, opening an escape route out of three of the cells, however one of the prisoners had offlined in the explosion, another one had been recaptured due to his injuries slowing him down and only four others had managed their escape. This didn't look like a planned attack – the responsible Autobot-soldiers were probably not the mechas he was looking for.

Counter Balance kept standing there, deep in thought as he revised the priorities in his to-do list, staring at nothing, not realizing he was beginning to creep out the construction mechas.

oOo

Meanwhile Outride was at the Master Tactician's office, filing boring information like the amount of screw boxes used on the prison-wings repairs to the supply database. He checked on yet another report of the equipment, still needed to be added to the database, he couldn't help but yawn while reading. Not only was this work monotonous but he also hadn't gotten much recharge last night because of his brilliant idea to sort through the files from Low-Key for several joors. There hadn't been anything really interesting in them. And in the morning, tired and bored, he had to attend the usual drill. After a quick refuel at the canteen he went straight to the Master Tactician. Since he was old Detalus' assistant that was where he spent most of his duty shifts. The mech was in a good mood this orn and Outride was actually considered asking him for permission to take a break for now. But when he went to talk with his superior, it ended up with him being sent to the construction mechas' foreman to inquire about some missing materials. The Old Turbo-Fox suspected some manipulations, Outride didn't care. And yet he went to the construction site in the prison block to hear an explanation.

His first hint that something unusual was going on was that the normal noise of a construction site was missing. The second hint was that the members of the construction crew were all standing close to the exit when he entered and that they were muttering to each other in apparent confusion.  
"…not been moving at all."  
"Maybe he crashed?"  
"Is there smoke coming from his helm? Did anyone see smoke coming from his helm?"  
"... think he'll step aside, if we ask him nicely?"

Right in the middle of the corridor, effectively blocking anyone from actually working stood that Spec Ops mech Counter Balance and just stared at the holes in the wall with a rather blank expression.

Outride was not too happy to see this. Not only he didn't like this mech, he also found him a tad dangerous. Unlike Low-Key, who underestimated the Spec. Ops commander, Outride wasn't sure yet of what this guy was capable of. One thing was certain, Counter Balance didn't come to Macron Gamma to check on the progress of repairs. Judging by the fact that his so-called 'inspection' only disturbed the work, Counter had probably no idea of what he was doing. For such an easy task his personal assistant would have done much better. That had Outride wonder about the real purpose of this mech's presence. Was he possibly looking for the one who had sold him to the Cons?

Outride decided to just ignore Counter and simply do his own job. He spotted the Autobot in charge of the construction site among the gathered crowd and walked up to him.

"Good morning, Tip-Trope. Do you have an anstrosecond? The Master Tactician would like to know..."

oOo

Counter was still pondering over whom of the mechas involved in the case he had to pull aside and as to how not making it look like a straight interrogation. Or should he first look into the security tapes from the prison surveillance? That might be the better idea, with some luck he could ask that security femme a question or two while he was at it or at least one of her coworkers and find out who exactly if not the femme herself had been on shift back then.

Decision made he turned towards the door only to find a small crowd gathered there. However under his stare the mechas soon decided they had work to do. But there on the side stood that tactical assistant Outride, talking with the foreman. Outride was actually on his list too and if he could catch what they had to discuss that might be helpful for his investigation later on. At least that was what Counter told himself.

The two mechs seemed actually startled by his close proximity. They apparently hadn't noticed him moving up to them – really they should pay more attention to their surroundings. Counter had even been able to overhear quite a bit of their conversation. So someone had used the metal plates meant for the wall repairs to prank a group of fellow soldiers by making their quarters smaller? And the materials could only be recovered partially, because the perpetrators had cut the slates to match their needs? And this fellow Outride had just agreed to 'take care of it' when he reported back to his boss the master tactician? Counter decided he would ask the old mech later what exactly his subordinate would report. Officially he was here for a building inspection after all. Better not being sloppy on his cover work.

"Good orn," Counter greeted and the construction mech hastily excused himself claiming he had  
work to see to. "You are just the mech I was looking for, Outride," he lied, feeling smug to have overheard so much of the two mechs' little talk. "Say, according to the prison logs you were down here on duty once in a while, do you know at how much percent the energy bars were running usually?" As much as Counter knew, 60% was normal, 80% was for exceptionally dangerous individuals and 100% was only activated when the base was under attack. Lower charge should only be used for cells holding drunken or brawling soldiers of their own faction but at some bases energy conservation had taken strange forms. Besides since it didn't really play a role in the escape scenario it might be a proper ice-breaker for a longer conversation.

The bright-green mech in front of him blinked.

"Excuse me, sir but I would need to check that. I'm not the security-specialist and neither the prison guard. I'm sure that our security chief would be a better help, you met her yesterday. Her designation is Low-Key."

That was correct of course but Counter wouldn't allow Outride to shake him off that easily: "Oh right I remember her, though we weren't really introduced. What is she like?"

"Low-Key? Well..." He looked for the right words and Counter got an impression that he wasn't too eager to answer. "She is a qualified and reliable officer. A little bit of a hermit, one may say. But when it comes to details about the prison block, Low-Key is the first to ask. She is always well-informed about what's going on in the base too."

'If she is so qualified, the how did those Cons escape?' Counter thought to himself. Aloud he said: "Does she have to discipline the crew often? Primus knows we got our share of brawls in the rec-room in Iacon."

"Same here," the mech nodded with a slightly worried expression. "But what can be done? Mechs just like to fight. But there never was anything too serious."

Counter pondered what to ask next but this was probably all the information Outride would give him. He'd better speak with this Low-Key femme in person soon instead, though it would probably be a very frustrating talk, he would have with her, Counter took a long moment to muse. Maybe he should try to charm her? It always seemed to work for Meister, the protagonist from the 'A spy for the Prime' novels. And what could possibly go wrong?

Counter excused himself muttering something vague about other duties.

Outride watched the oddly behaving mech walk away. Was this guy trying to be mysterious? Or had the Cons actually done something to his cpu during his imprisonment? Outride was getting a bit curious about that weirdo and his plans. Maybe, just maybe, an accident needed to happen to Counter Balance while he was on base? Would Commander Starscream appreciate that? Outride wondered while returning to the Master Tactician. It was time to ask for another orn-off.

oOo

All that his attempt at flirting had gotten Counter was a spectacular slap that made his faceplates ring. Somewhere in his rattling processor he wondered, if his agents may have a point when they stated, that some of Meister's methods may not work so smoothly in real life.

The huge armor plates on the femme's back were almost bristling, reminding him of an angry insecticon. There were a lot of things that spoke for this femme being the one, who had helped the prisoners escape. After all they had gotten away on her shift. She had been present when the transport was set on its way and she was the one who had controlled which camera footage had been given to the official investigation team - it had shown exactly nothing.  
She didn't have this post all that long yet either and last but not least one of the escaped prisoners had been another femme, so there may have been misguided sympathies involved (or some sort of femme-conspiracy against mechs). But he wouldn't get anything out of her, if she just threw him out of the security hub.

"Calm down, … please? I'm not even sure how I offended you."

"How?" The furious femme spat out through her gritted dentas. "Pushing your servos under somebot's back platings without permission sounds offensive enough to me. But we're talking about the officer on duty here, so that rather counts as an attempt of molesting. I'll report this behavior to General Quasar."

"I … Whaaat?" He had simply put a friendly servo on her back, when she had completely ignored his flirtatious greeting. Now that he thought about it, her back plates were a lot like an insecticon's and split in the middle like a bug shell. And they were so long that she needed to open them to sit down - which resulted in a broad gap. Below that had still been armor though and Counter was used to deal with femmes, who were literally tanks – this one was a carformer however.  
"That really wasn't my intention, I swear by Primus!" He almost cringed inwardly, he hated having to deal with femmes, and he had to still get back on her good side somehow. It was time for a new tactic. Unfortunately his dignity wouldn't survive it. So he continued after a moment of hesitation: "But if you feel it is necessary, let's go to general Quasar and I will take full responsibility for this. …I really am sorry."

Low-Key shot him a warning glare.

"I guess that won't be necessary," she grunted, "but I'm not allowing any physical contact between us, is that clear?"

"Yes. Yes, of course." Counter nodded swallowing his pride. He had a higher rank than the femme, yet she talked down to him as if that was normal. Still under these circumstances it was better not to point that out.

"Then how can I help you, Sir," she asked crossing her arms, the word 'sir' almost stuck inside her throat like a hard to chew bite of silicon wafer.

Counter was relieved that he had made a little progress at least. Maybe he should risk revealing his true mission to her? It would allow for him to ask for the camera footage more openly and it might serve as an additional apology. But then, if she really was the spy in question she would have the best opportunity to hand him fake evidence. Deciding to take the risk he asked: "Did general Quasar inform you why I am on this base?"

The security femme narrowed her optics.

"The General told us that you were sent to supervise the repairs in the prison-wing, especially since the Cons gave us trouble with transporting the materials."

Of course she must have known that wasn't the truth - at least not the whole truth.

"That is the official reason," Counter confirmed. "The unofficial reason is that with that last attack on the supply convoy by now there were three different incidents that hint to foul play in one way or another directly related to this base. The official investigation did not unveil anything concrete aside from the fact that we got at least an information leak." He stopped there, giving his words a moment to sink in.

oOo

Low-Key thought about it for a moment, three incidents – and they all took place within the last half of the groon. That was indeed suspicious, on the other hand as far as she knew the only really important information that had obviously been leaked, had been Counter Balance's last mission. It made her a bit skeptical about those breaking news. But then again it was better to be safe than sorry, if any of the Autobots on this base had contacted the Cons it was a serious deal.

"And you are looking for the responsible bot?" she questioned. "We didn't have any new recruits in here. Are you suggesting that somebot from the old crew has betrayed us?"

"It is one of the possibilities. A simple information leak would be one thing, the Cons have several mecha specialized on infiltration tactics after all but helping the prisoners escape like that, looks more like an inside job."

Hearing that made the femme somewhat offended. An agent? Here on the base she worked so hard to protect and keep safe every orn? She would have noticed, if any of the mechas acted suspiciously but the only really suspicious individual so far, if she didn't want to count Counter himself, was the interrogation specialist from the Macron Delta base. Not only was that bot creepy as pit but he also didn't allow cameras inside the interrogation room he had worked in.

"From witnesses we know that the escape of the Decepticon prisoners was caused by a technical problem with the cuffs that were put on them. It was most likely an unfortunate coincident," the security officer paused pondering over her own words. "But I can check the video material from that orn again," she added.

It still bothered her that some Cons were able to escape on her watch, such a disgrace left a mark on her so-far impressive achievements. Maybe she should look into that case again. After all a failure of three pairs of cuffs, at same time sounded very unlikely. The expertise had revealed that corrosion was the reason for the failure. A few other pairs in the storage room had turned out to be corroded too. However, most of the cuffs from the same batch were perfectly fine. Still, it was hard to blame poorly made equipment on a base worker.

oOo

Seeing how disturbed Low-Key was with the idea that one of their own might be the traitor he offered another possibility which he had discussed with Alpha Trion before coming to the Macron Gamma base: "Has there been anyone new around this base regularly, who is not listed as base personal?"

"As a matter of fact, there was," she answered without thinking twice. "Aside from you, Sir we were also visited by an interrogation specialist – designation: TiltShift. He's a resident of Macron Delta base but he had been here before, interrogating our prisoners – those who escaped included."

"Why wasn't that mentioned in the reports?" Counter asked with a frown. But actually he didn't really need an explanation - actual torture in interrogation was something the Autobot code of conduct strictly forbade. There had been a few accusations in that direction even at him, since he was a Spec Ops commander, though his job was rather keeping his team of overgrown sparklings in line. And there had never been any footage available of course. "I guess I don't have to ask you, whether there was monitoring devices in the room that mech used to ask his questions? But is there at least footage of him dragging any of those three prisoners who first escaped off?"

"Yes, of course," she assured him and turned to her monitor to look for the right files. "I can play it for you right now, Sir."

Counter made sure to wait a moment until the femme moved aside, he didn't want to accidentally get too close to her and end up on her bad side again all that soon.

Paying attention to the files and asking Low-Key a few times to zoom in on details he could only agree that the mech Tiltshift was using torture. His victims, all of them seekers were dragged off and were returned joors later with suspicious burn-marks on their wings and staggering from the pain. Though no permanent damage had been done that would actually keep those mechas from flying. Which was quite suspicious enough. Whatever else came from this investigation this footage in the right servos would spell the end of Tiltshift's career – and Alpha Trion's servos were exactly the ones to be entrusted with this. No 'friends' in influential positions would be able to sway the old senator's judgement. That probably only meant that some other unscrupulous mecha would take Tiltshift's job, but this was about the principle of things.

"I'll take a copy of that," he finally said. He was about to ask for more camera footage of the day of the actual escape, when there was a knock on the door of the security hub.

"Shift change." Low-Key sighed, she seemed actually unhappy to have a break from work before she called for the mecha outside to enter. Though Counter couldn't miss how she suddenly scrunched her faceplate in annoyance.

"Diode! What are you doing here and where is Tapwire?" she asked with quite some suspicion in her voice.

"Ummm, well he took my shift at the patrol earlier, 'cause I had a helmache and so now I'm taking over his shift in return," the mech called Diode stuttered out.

"You mean you were hungover from the evening at the bar in town yesterorn! And what did I tell you guys about trading shifts when on security duty? I don't want you here! Megatron could waltz through the base, painted pink and declaring his undying love to Starcream and you would write 'all quiet' into your report!" To Counter's amazement the femme seemed almost angrier at that mech than at him earlier. But he couldn't help but ask: "Wait, is trading shifts here common?"

"Unfortunately it is," the femme huffed glaring at Diode angrily as if she wanted to silently scold him. "Those lazy-afts are always looking for some excuses and then it is always Outride to cover for them. Is he the only responsible mech on base, really?"

Counter forced his processor to put that new information into an extra loop. If the names of the mecha on the shift roster weren't identical with the mecha who had actually worked during those shifts, then the official investigation team had done background- and alibi-checks for the wrong bots. And none of the soldiers would ever fess up on having traded their shifts away, when the result was a prisoner escape. Maybe maintenance on those cuffs had been done sloppily by some overtired mecha who had just worked three shifts in a row or something like that. He would have to take one of those damaged cuffs apart to make sure later, if they hadn't been tossed into recycling already.  
It didn't cast a too great light on this Outride fellow either, as an officer he should be more responsible and making sure the roster was followed, instead of playing along and wasting his downtime with other mecha's work. What exactly was in it for him, Counter wondered, because the mech didn't look like a pushover who could be bullied easily by a frontliner.

"Thank you Low-Key, we will continue this at another time then? If you would give me a call, when you are back on shift and can spare the breems?" He nodded to her politely and left the security hub, where she continued to shout at the still obviously hungover Diode.

"What to do next?" Counter wondered. Oh well, it was about noon so maybe a visit to the rec room for some energon was a good idea. He would probably have to look over camera footage for the entire night to find out who had actually done which shift in the prison wing and would need all the energy he could get for that.


	3. Dark alleys

The tactical room was almost quiet. A few junior tacticians were training at the simulator to the side, replaying a famous battle from the offworld wars while two senior tacticians were silently reading through battle reports and entering data into the tactical database. The big holomap on the central table was turned off even though the base's master tactician and his assistant were working there on a plan for protecting the next supply convoy.

Outride had confirmed that building materials were missing, probably lost during the transportation. And after a few angry comm-calls to the supplier and the unit responsible for loading the cargo, the Old-Fox had given up on trying to search for the one to blame. When he had calmed down, it was a good time to start the little diversion that Outride had thought of since the last orn.

"I was wondering," he started trying to get the attention of his boss," under which circumstances a middle-ranked bot would be allowed to access the high-security level database? Has a situation like that ever happened, Sir?"

"It would need an investigation of internal affairs or a medical emergency and that middle-ranked bot being a consulted specialist on the matter at servo for that to even being considered. That does not happen without direct orders and constant supervision by an officer of rank to have the clearances for the necessary files and even in that case only a copy of the relevant data will be made available." The master tactician replied with a sudden sharp edge in his voice. "Why are you asking? Is that new mech on base Counter Balance up to something?"

Outride pretended to be very surprised.

"Oh, no, no. Nothing that I'd know about." He shook his helm in denial. "I just talked with Low-Key about that matter and she said that there are exceptions. So I'd thought, I ask."

"Don't treat me for a processor-rusted old fool, Outride, you were not talking about a hypothetical situation here. What does Low-Key have to do with this? Has she been snooping around where she had neither business nor permit to? Because before you ask: No, she definitely has no permit to look into any high security files. And before you answer my question, Outride, I need to remind you that such a behavior would not be a simple prank but will be treated as a very serious security risk. So don't just protect some mecha because you might be friends with them."

The younger mech ex-vented in an almost dramatic manner, giving his face-plate the look of a scolded cyber-puppy.

"I think she read Commander Counter Balance's files. I didn't see what exactly but I recognized his picture and the 'confidential' stamp. Low-Key said she got a permission but she acted nervously and closed it instantly – that's why I'm asking."

With that revelation Low-Key was screwed. If the Spec. Ops. mech found out about it, he would suspect the femme to be the spy while Outride could happily continue his mission.

Detalus eyed him with disbelieve.

"Are you saying our own security officer possibly broke into the database of Iacon's special forces? That is a serious accusation, Outride. What exactly did you see and when?"

The situation was getting a bit too tense for his liking, it was the time to play dumb again.

"I just... walked in on her when Low-Key was on her shift, I saw that file opened on her screen and asked about it, that's all."

He tried to avoid telling when was that had happened exactly because it could also be found suspicious that he had taken the files Detalus had requested from Low-Key and then kept them for whole night before delivering them.

The Old-Fox narrowed his optics, carefully analyzing what he had just heard.

"In that case, I guess, I will need to exchange a word or two with Low-Key myself. For now, let's get back to work."

"Yes, Sir," the bright-green mech nodded obediently. "One more thing, Sir."

"Yes?"

"I wanted to ask for permission to visit the town tonight."

"Permission granted."

oOo

Completely oblivious to this new development, Counter Balance wondered later, why Low-Key didn't call him during her shift. He knew she had been on the roster and that she was strictly against swapping with other mecha. But then maybe something had come up and she didn't have the time to show him more camera footage.

Another possibility was of course that she was the culprit behind everything and that she was currently busy with manipulating evidence. So in the meantime Counter had contacted Alpha Trion on a secure line and sent him what he had found out about interrogator Tiltshift. Then he had ordered his assistant Neon to go over all the old evidence they had on the prisoner escape. If anyone was able to find any undetected discrepancies between the footage and the reports of the witnesses, it would be the young mech with the eidetic memory core.

Finally he had decided to pay the security hub another visit. To his surprise however it was not Low-Key who was on duty but…

"Diode?" He asked disbelievingly. What was going on here?

"Yes, …sir? The mech answered after belatedly checking the rank insignias and noting that Counter was indeed an officer. "How may I help you?"

"I had the impression that Low-Key was still on shift." …and that the femme would prefer a cleaning drone doing her job over you. He added in his thoughts.

"Yes, sir, that is correct but she was called into some sort of emergency meeting with general Quasar and the CTO Detalus before she could get somebot to take over the shift I had traded in. And she hasn't returned yet either so I'm on a double shift now. I had hoped that maybe Outride could relieve me – he usually helps out with last minute emergencies – but he got a free evening in town and is currently not on base." The other mech hurried to explain. At the same time he managed a 'hopeful turbopuppy' expression, that Counter might tell him his shift was finally over. Counter knew that look just too well from his assistant, to confuse it for anything else.

Actually that was fitting well into his plans to watch the footage undisturbed, and once that strange meeting - 'cause which emergency could be there that he wasn't informed of- was over, Low-Key would undoubtedly first return to the security hub.

"Go and get some rest, soldier, you look like you are in recharge on your pedes. I can watch those monitors for a few joors till the next shift starts."

After a hasty salute, Diode almost teleported out of the door, afraid the officer could suddenly change his mind. And Counter was alone with the monitors, his research and his thoughts about that 'meeting'. He only hoped that Low-Key hadn't decided to file a complaint about molestation after all.

oOo

When the night came to the city, Outride greeted it with open arms. He had left the base a few joors ago and now he wasted his time in a bar with some Autobot soldiers, waiting for the darkness to fall.

The bar was crowded and loud. He knew many bots who had their drinks here and they knew him as well, his bright and gaudy paintjob was rather easy to spot. He exchanged a few words with the security guys, shared a laugh with his 'friend' from communications, he even complimented the femme from technical support who won a game of dice against some tipsy mechs.

Finally it got darker and it was a high time for Outride to leave. After all he had something to take care of tonight. He snuck out of the bar but instead of returning to the base, he turned into the one of the dark alleys trying to walk as quietly as his frame allowed him to.

He didn't even notice that he was being followed, that was until the sound of a second pair of pedes filled the empty street. Outride's spark skipped a bit, he went faster but the other mecha was already close. There was no other choice but to hide and wait for whoever was coming. The tactician turned abruptly to the gateway he was about to pass, he pressed his frame to the wall and hid in the shadow of the arch. He could hear a bot heading his way in a hurry. He activated his blaster. Three, two, one and...

"Don't even try," the low voice of the mech echoed through the empty alley. Outride knew that voice, he put down his gun and stepped out of the shadows.

The pitch-black bot that stood before him was a carformer, smaller than Outride but probably faster and with a nasty looking grimace on his face-plate. He was exactly the type of guy that nobot would like to meet in a dark alley like this one. And yet Outride smiled faintly at the sight of this mech.

"Oh, it's just you Tarpit. I thought I was being followed by some Bot."

"As if! Those autodolts are busy partying away like there is no tomorrow. So why did you come here tonight? Got something good to report?" the other mech snorted.

The black-framed Decepticon spy called Tarpit was his contact, all information that Outride ever gathered went through this shady persona straight to Starscream's database. The mech lived in the city, pretending to be a neutral but he had ways to send encoded messages across the frontline that the Autobots hadn't figured out yet.

The tactician nodded, his optics shimmered with excitement.

"I do and it is really big. I have a few names that might interest the Commander."

"Only names? Do you have an idea how much work it will be to sift through the database with just names? Those are better good, Acrid!"

"And do YOU have an idea how dangerous my work is?" The bright-green mech crossed his arms slightly offended by the lack of appreciation. "I got a slagging Spec. Ops. commander in my base right now. You won't believe how lucky I was to get my servos on a list of his agents. Listen carefully..."

He repeated the names he had read thanks to Low-Key's stupid antic with hacking classified files. If any of those bots would be scrapped as a result, the femme might get accused of treason – that worked in Outride's advantage more than anything else. Finishing his short report, he waited for Tarpit's reaction with anticipation.

"Are you fragging kidding me? What were you drinking in that joint? Mayday, Temperance and Vault alias Blackbox are currently the top three names on Shockwave's slag list!"

Outride was left speechless for an astrosecond. His confusion turned into annoyance very quickly.

"Then why didn't you bother to keep me informed? How the Pit was I supposed to know what is going on on our side while I'm rusting here with the Autolosers?!"

"Oh, I am sorry that I don't carry every single wanted poster of the last ten vorn around with me in my disguise as a harmless neutral. Any more outdated intel you are desperate to share?"

"No," he mumbled, avoiding to look at the other mech's faceplate. "Just a thing to ask. I need more hydrafloric acid, bring me a few vials next time. I have a Bot to offline..."

oOo

Counter had not spent the night idling. First he had fast forwarded through all the security vids, noting who and how many mechas had actually been in the prison block up to a decaorn before the prison break. He had compared that with the official shift-roster – apparently everybot and their symbionts were trading shifts and prison shifts must have been either the most despised or desired duty on the entire base. Even Outride had been taking over for at least three different mecha in the observed timeframe. He also had asked one of the Seeker's a few questions.

Counter went through that short interrogation yet again but there was nothing new… did Outride just grope a wing there? Yes, he definitely had! And the Seeker femme had retaliated by slapping said wing into his faceplate! Why hadn't that been in the security report?

Counter then had contacted Neon to ask if the youngling had figured out, who actually had been in the security hub when Outride had talked with the femme. The answer had been Diode – of course the (probably) most inattentive mech on the entire base had been on monitor duty. So it was no surprise Outride's groping hadn't made it into the protocols. Counter really needed to have a word with the CTO about his assistant soon.

At least the mech responsible for the prison maintenance seemed to take his job seriously. Counter planned to pay him a visit after his own impromptu shift ended to ask him, if one of the damaged cuffs was still available for a thorough scan.

However, he still had to send out security teams twice to first interrupt a brawl in the rec room and then to stop a completely overcharged mech from locking himself in the cold storage room before he could sign off. This place had a serious problem with discipline, which general Quasar really shouldn't have left unattended for this long. If it was up to himself, Counter would have sent all those slackers back to boot-camp. Sometimes he missed being in command of a normal army unit.

Once he had been relieved of his post (not by Low-Key – where was that femme?), Counter had actually managed to ask a few inconspicuous questions to the maintenance mech. He had said that their supplier had probably sent a bunch of faulty equipment and requested, if one pair of the corroded cuffs was available to be used as evidence for the scam. Unfortunately they had been thrown into recycling but if Counter didn't mind to search, the maintenance bot continued, one or two of them might still be lying outside where the seekers had jumped out of the prison convoy.

It had already been pitch dark outside and even though the convoy hadn't gotten far away from the base back then, Counter didn't enjoy being out in the open this much as he searched the ground illuminated only by his headlights. Luckily the cuffs had been easy to find, as their surfaces were still untarnished and gleaming in the low light. They actually seemed to be in pristine condition and if he hadn't known they had somehow failed, Counter admitted that he would have been fooled by that too.

Later a detour to the science section had revealed the true, sorry state of the items. It hadn't been all that easy to pry the lock-casings apart. Inspecting the insides of the lock under a microscope Counter frowned. This didn't look like rust but it was corrosion all right as something had eaten through all the small mechanical bits that were meant to keep the lock together. The metal looked greyish and brittle and had obviously reacted violently with something. This definitely was not simply a case of bad maintenance, nor had it been the fault of the manufacturer. Someone had spilled acid inside, a first clear and definite proof of sabotage!

Leaving a sample of the brittle greyish flakes in the servos of a science bot for analysis – maybe they could find out what exactly had been used. Counter decided that it was high time to get some rest. It was so far past midnight already that he basically fell into recharge once his frame hit the berth – spy and all be damned.

oOo

It had been jarring to come out of recharge by an urgent call from general Quasar, who apparently wanted Counter in his office at ornbreak. Groggily he tried to remember his to do list for the orn as he made his way to the command level of the base. Passing by the rec room, he could have sworn hearing someone talking about Low-Key but as soon as he drew closer, curiously the soldiers taking their morning energon seemed to notice that an officer was present and muted up. He didn't have time to waste here anyway as nice as a cube would have been.

The mystery of Low-Key solved itself faster than he had expected though, as soon as he had entered the office, general Quasar didn't waste time to give him the news.

"What do you mean Low-Key was apprehended?" Counter repeated disbelievingly.

"She got reported on hacking into a high-security database. To be exact, into your file," the mech waited a moment for his old friend to understand the seriousness of the situation. "We will be investigating this further, so far it is confirmed that someone accessed that data without my permission from the security hub connection. I thought you'd need to know this, especially since... Well, you know how it almost ended the last time when you were here."

"Damn! I need to relay messages to my agents. Not that there is much the cons can work with about them in my file but some covers might be compromised. I better speak with Low-Key myself then to find out what exactly she has been taking. Can you tell me when that hack occurred?"

"Of course, of course, you can ask her a few questions. The femme is currently kept in an undestroyed part of the brig till the actual interrogation. Detalus and I are very surprised by this situation, Low-Key may not have worked here from the start but her commitment to her work was undeniable. And now this." He shook his helm in disappointment. "She broke into the database the first night you arrived. That, in addition to the 'leak' you're investigating, puts Low-Key in a very bad light indeed."

"Wait, if it has occurred that early already, how was it discovered only now? From what you just said I understand it was not by an alert of the database itself?" Counter pointed out what made no sense to him.

"It was discovered at the same night it took place, the femme got caught red-servoed by another officer, which again, doesn't sound like the well-planned action of a spy – this case is truly suspicious."

"Very suspicious indeed," Counter muttered slowly.


	4. Suspicion

The chief security officer impatiently strode around her narrow cell in which she had been locked up since the night before. She was still furious about this slimy fragger who hadn't even thought twice before running to the master tactician and telling on her. It had been unlike her to be careless enough to do something like hacking without checking if the door was locked, but still that Primus-damned Outride had no reasons to do that. Or had he? Thinking about all that, the femme sank onto the berth with resignation. And that was when she heard that somebot was heading her way. She rose to her pedes only to see that it was neither general Quasar nor master tactician Detalus.

"What are you doing here?" She asked not without some surprise. Then he reminded herself that the mech before her was still of a higher rank so she quickly added 'Sir".

"That is a very strange question coming from you, after all you. broke. into. my. file! What do you have to say for your defense?" Counter didn't care to hide how angry he was about what the security femme had done.

For an astrosecond Low-Key felt genuinely ashamed for her little investigation that had caused so much trouble - probably to more mecha than just her and Counter. But soon the anger resonated within her again, she had done what she had done but in the end, she only had meant well and where did that get her?

"No offense but I found it suspicious that the mech who just got ambushed and imprisoned by the Cons is now miraculously free and back to our base. I just wanted to check who you are. That was a mistake and I'm sorry for that but there was nothing more to it, I assure you."

"That oh so miraculous rescue of mine was made possible by some of the mecha whose names were in that very same database you hacked into. Thanks to that I had to call pretty much every one of them back from their missions, just to make sure they weren't slowly slaughtered to deactivation by some con interrogators, and I can worry now about those who I wasn't able to contact."

"If you're implying that I might have sent that data over to the Cons, you're offending me and my position." The femme crossed her arms and glared at him. "I repeat, I meant neither harm to your agents nor to you. I was just curious and I'm paying for that right now."

"And what guarantee do I or any of my agents have that none of that information has leaked? Remember what I've told you why I am here? There is a spy on this base, it has been confirmed in the meantime that someone has sabotaged the cuffs which led to the prisoner escape. I have been caught once already because a top-secret information from this very base was leaked - of course we have to handle it as a worst-case scenario!"

That was a shocking news. A sabotage confirmed? Here on her shift? No way! The femme's optics grew larger upon hearing all that.

"What are you saying?" She whispered with trembling lip-plates. "Only the few mechas from the prison security had access to the cuffs and other equipment. How could anybot have the means and the time to sabotage the cuffs?"

"Someone poured a strong acid inside the keyholes, that way the locking mechanism was destroyed from the inside with nobot noticing. Wouldn't even have taken much acid, just a few drops all apply-able within astroseconds. Whoever the culprit was, walked in there probably the night before, sabotaged a bunch of those cuffs likely to be used on the next transport and then simply let the acid do its work. If it wasn't you, and in the moment, I don't have much reason to believe in your innocence in this matter, then who else had the opportunity? And I know you were on shift in the security hub for several joors that night." Counter asked sternly. He didn't really believe Low-Key would be able to contribute anything useful, but then he'd rather not overlook any possible clues in a matter this grave.

"If you really suspect me, why do you even tell me all that?" She mocked, but still she seemed not in a joking mood. Low-Key apparently remembered all too well that she had been on watch duty that night. As a security chief, this sort of fail at her job to keep the base safe had to be smarting. She would want to know the culprit as much as Counter.

"Look, to get to the prison storage unnoticed, the responsible mecha would need a prison key-card. That means only me, the other bots on guard-shift or someone of at least officer rank could have entered that room that orn. You can check of course who had been on shift back then but another question is – where did they even get that acid from and how? It's a well-guarded base, I can't believe somebot just smuggled it in. There are also frame-scanners to check on mechas returning from extended missions and regular maintenance checkups at the medbay, a chemical weapon wouldn't get unnoticed. Or do you think it could have been stolen from the research lab inside the base? Did you ask about their acid supplies already?"

That made Counter chuckle darkly: "As if that were of any help. In this base nothing is as it is supposed to be: No mechs are doing whatever shift they are ordered to be on, supplies get 'lost' for pranks and the security chief is the biggest threat to the security." He couldn't help to add that last barb. "I wouldn't be surprised if the science mechas here were missing half of their lab equipment for one reason or the other, not just a few drops of acid."

The femme's faceplate heated up heavily. As furious as it must make her, she knew that Counter had a point – there was not enough discipline in the Macron Gamma base and no bot would even bother to report such minor disturbances, if not for the seekers' escape and the related incidents.

"So what are you planning to do? Are you just gonna sit and wait until somebot will find that acid inside the weapon they were supposed to fire? Or eating through the cables holding the elevator they are in? How are you gonna find the traitor before more incidents happen?"

"Maybe a prayer to Primus is in order," Counter replied sarcastically, "because if we manage to catch that spy – always assuming it wasn't you after all – before they strike again, it will be nothing less than a miracle. But I guess I can try my luck with interviewing the scientists and the medics while I am at it. So excuse me now, I have work to do."

Honestly Counter doubted by now that Low-Key was the true perpetrator, but still this left him, where exactly? The real spy had managed to hide his tracks surprisingly well.

The Spec Ops commander was about to leave when the femme suddenly perked up:

"Wait," she called after the mech, "you could also ask Outride."

That made Counter turn around sharply.

"Outride? Why Outride?"

"Because he's the only mech I know who uses an acid squirt gun. He has to re-fill it somewhere, right?"

"That is not an Autobot standard weapon."

While acid weapons were not exactly illegal, they were very unusual among the troops. Normally each soldier got a blaster or a laser-rifle to train with upon recruitment. Autobots who were fighting with different weapons usually had previous training with them from before the war, like nobles, law enforcers and the occasional criminal. But from what he had seen in the personal files, Outride did not have any background that fit that description.

"I am hearing far too much about this mech lately." He finally put into words what had been nagging at him for a while now.

The femme only rolled her optics.

"Tell me about it. You think I don't know it was him who reported on me to the master tactician? And before you start assuming, that I'm now trying to repay him by telling you about his weapon, let's make it clear – I'm not accusing Outride, I'm just suggesting his private supply could have been used on those cuffs. Even though he has a keycard and the rank, he really hates the Cons - only barely survived an airstrike on his city. He joined up with us almost right after the rescue team dug him out of the rubble. I can't imagine him as a Con spy! I mean he only recently has barely survived a Con-attack for the second time."

"Maybe I should indeed rather talk with the medics than with the scientists. But not about hidden weapons but which state he was exactly in when he was rescued after that last attack." Counter said, everything he had heard or seen about the mech so far seemed to add up to quite a dishonest character. "How comes you suspect it was him who snitched on you by the way?"

"I don't 'suspect', I know it was him," she huffed in irritation. "He walked in on me while I was reading your data. Should have locked the door, I guess..."

"Which data exactly did he see?" Counter cursed inwardly, of course there was more than one leak and this probably had been overlooked by the investigating officers.

"I'm not sure, just a list with the names probably."

"Just a list with names." Counter groaned. And since he for once knew who had been on security shift last night cycle – namely himself, he didn't need to check that Outride hadn't even been put on 'no leave' status, the mech had gone out last night to get a drink and then been back punctually before curfew.  
"I gotta leave, medics to interrogate, a CTO to ask about his assistant and to ground a certain green mech until further notice."

Low-Key stopped him for the second time.

"Hold on, do you really think Outride is a suspect?"

"From what I have learned since I came here, the mech is actively taking part in disrupting the shift roster, despite being an officer. He has been requesting to be put on prison duty, where he has groped a female prisoner. He has also agreed to withhold information from his superiors about a prank that resulted in loss of supply material, which delayed getting that big gaping hole in the prison wall being repaired. He has an unusual weapon mod which he most likely already had when he signed up as an Autobot, despite his background saying he was a mid-level sales mech before enlisting. His weapon mod could very well be the source for the acid, that was found in the sabotaged cuffs in a storage room he had a keycard for, he is the only mech who came back alive from an ambush and last but not least: He snitched on an aquaintance."

The femme fell silent upon hearing all that. Finally she nodded her acknowledgment. While any of those facts would have been relatively inconspicuous on their own, together they added up to a very nasty picture.

"This has to be carefully inspected. Normally I'd offer my help but under these circumstances..." She gestured at the prison bars with her helm. "Anyway, I hope you will find the truth before any more damage is done."

"Yes, it was a very interesting talk, Low-Key, but this can really wait no longer." Counter nodded at her in parting and hurried away, already on the comm with the science team, demanding for the results of the material analysis.

The science mech verified Counter's suspicion, hydrafloric acid, which had been found in the cuffs' locking mechanisms was a strong weapon grade acid that was neither stocked in the science wing nor in the medical storage. While the armory had a very limited supply of acid pellets for a few non-standard guns, neither weapon nor ammunition for it seemed to be missing. The armsmaster responsible for the depot had been surprised by Counter's sudden interest. Projectile weapons like pellet guns were unpopular since they were far less accurate to aim than standard lasers or blasters.  
A detour to the medics had not yielded the results counter wished for. The chief medical officer had insisted on the patient-medic confidentiality and blatantly told Counter off, so he hadn't been able to verify Low-Key's statement that Outride had indeed a hidden, inbuilt acid gun.

However, one of the medical assistants had not been able to suppress a giggle when Counter had asked, if anything had been unusual about Outride's injuries after being rescued from the Con ambush. Pulling the giggling mech aside after their shift without the chief medic noticing had been easy enough to accomplish.

Apparently aside from all the other damage, Outride had been sporting a very interesting, not very deep bitemark in his neck cabling. The med-tech had winked at Counter, saying that Outride apparently had been gone on that mission not realizing his lover –whoever that was- had bitten him the night before. Counter had a very different idea as of when exactly that may have happened. And another look at the security footage from the time the doomed convoy was departing the base showed a very clear shot of Outride's pristine and undamaged neck.

Finally a check into the base reports stamped by the master tactician listed the irregularities in the building supplies not as the results of a prank with so far unknown perpetrators but as the fault of the supplier. So apparently Outride had indeed lied to his direct superior. Counter made sure to have a video-file of the pranksters sneaking through the corridors with the missing metal plates attached to a report of his own, including the overheard conversation between Outride and the construction mech, a remark that Diode had been on security duty at that time and a recommendation to lock out the latter from the security hub for a lifetime.

Now he felt ready to have a talk with tactician Detalus about his subordinate.

oOo

While Counter Balance was busy at the medical wing, Outride had been paying a little visit to the security hub at the prison block. The mech who greeted him there looked quite happy to see him. All the times he had socialized with low ranked soldiers and done the most boring duties for them apparently made the bots think they were friends. And that worked for Outride just fine.

"How are you doing, Diode?"

The guard-mech replied with a hand gesture.

"Fine, just bored as usually. These monitoring shifts are the worst!"

Outride nodded understandingly. He knew that Diode was not a type of bot who could concentrate on something for longer than two breems without falling into an instant reboot cycle. Unless of course that thing to concentrate on was a cube of high-grade or a femme's curvy bumper.

"I know, I just wanted to ask how is Low-Key doing? Anything new? I'm worried about her," he lied.

The other mech thought about it for a moment.

"Nah, she's fine," he shrugged.

"But she must be even more bored than you. Did anybot even visit her, yet?" Outride insisted. He needed to know, if his plan to distract everyone on the base with Low-Key's hacking affair was working.

"Well... I think that new, yellow-helmed mech went to talk to her today, that's all."

The blue optics of the junior tactician widened a bit upon hearing that revelation.

"You mean, Counter Balance? And what did he say?"

"I don't know," Diode brushed him off. "I was here watching mostly empty cells and construction mechas slacking off the whole time."

"And who was on a guarding shift?"

"Tapwire, I guess. Wait, where are you going?"

Outride didn't feel like explaining himself in front of a moron like Diode, he just strode out of the security hub to find the other guards-mech. He had to know what the Primus-damned spec ops commander would possibly want with Low-Key. Those two sharing information definitely spelled trouble.


	5. Knowing is not enough

The dark-yellow mech who was leaning to a wall on the nearly empty prison level seemed to be even more bored than his colleague at the security hub, if such a thing was even possible. Seeing the officer approach, Tapwire was fervently trying to hide the cy-gar he had been smoking and saluted hastily. Outride, however just wanted to chat with the mech about his shift.

The most interesting thing that had happened all orn, according to Tapwire, was Counter Balance's visit at Low-Key's cell. There had been shouting, lots of shouting and accusations, Counter calling her a spy and Low-Key denying it. But then they both had gone much quieter and it had been impossible to understand more.

"Uh, and just as that officer-mech Counter was about to leave, Low-Key called him back. Ummm she said something about asking you about 'it', ahh no idea what 'it' was. Guess that guy didn't take her advice, if you don't know what they were on about?"

Outride cursed silently – they had talked about him. While it could have been connected to Low-Key's apprehension, it could also have been something far more dangerous. Counter Balance had only come to the Macron Gamma base with the sole purpose of looking for a spy – that one was obvious and Outride didn't know how much information the spec ops commander had already collected by now. The security femme was also a threat. Outride might have to kill off both of them, not only the spec ops commander. And he had to do it quickly before others like Quasar and Detalus were presented with the missing pieces to their puzzle.

"Where is officer Counter Balance now?"

Tapwire thought for a moment and then for a moment longer, while Outride shifted from one pede to the other impatiently. It was surprising that there wasn't smoke coming from the guard's usually unused processor.

"He wanted to go interrogate some medics? Not sure why he'd want to do that, but that was before Low-Key called him back and a few joors ago, too," the mech finally answered.

Medics? So they doubted him after all? The nosy spec ops mech probably planned to find contradictions in Outride's story about the ambush on the supply caravan. However the field medic would confirm his testimony. His Decepticon friend had not pulled any punches when beating the scrap out of Outride back then. All the wounds had been real.

"Fine, thank you," the spy mumbled, deciding to return to his quarters for now. He had to find an opportunity to talk with Counter, to figure out how much the mech knew. And if it was too much... Well, next nightcycle Tarpit should have the ordered acid ready for him. Funny thing about it was that a substance so dangerous mixed with the energon without any visible chemical reaction. Metal, however melted under the smallest drop. Outride couldn't wait to make a good use of that.

oOo

Counter exvented as he knocked on the door to Detalus office in the main room of the tactical wing. A few of the younger tacticians had cast him curious glances, but they were running a complicated looking battle simulation on one of the bigger holoprojectors and didn't seem to want to interrupt their work to check what the officer wanted.

Briefly Counter wondered how this talk would go. If it was his own assistant under suspicion, what would he do? Did Detalus consider Outride to be his student? A friend? Maybe a creation? Having to be the messenger of bad news would not be too great in either case.

"Officer Counter Balance? How can I help you?" The elder mech greeted him without even looking in his direction.

"Greetings, sir. I fear I have a rather troublesome topic to bring to your attention," Counter began, thinking of how best to approach the issue. He didn't know Detalus well enough to predict his reactions. "This is about your assistant Outride. The mech isn't as honest as he seems."

The master tactician raised his large optic ridge in a rather surprised manner.

"What are you implying, commander?"

"All evidence I have gathered so far points to him being the spy that has been causing so much trouble around here." Counter put a copy of the datapad with his report between them onto the desk.

"Those are very serious accusations, Counter," the other mech warned him narrowing his optics as if judging his motivations. "Come, take a walk with me. We'll talk on the way, in private."

"I wish there was more time to investigate but you'll admit a possible spy in the tactical section is a security nightmare come true," Counter replied but followed the old mech to the door.

The two left the room together and walked down the empty corridor, it seemed like nobot else was there to overheard them and yet the Old Turbo-fox kept silent for a long moment. He gave a look to the datapad that Counter had given him but he definitely didn't read it with attention and focus.

"I appreciate your concern, Counter, " he finally started after a short while, 'but don't you think I'd notice, if my own assistant was collaborating with the enemy? I know that Outride might seem dishonest sometimes but you must understand where he comes from. He always tries to help everyone, even if that means telling a lie, you see. He's too polite for his own good."

"Polite, I see, though this sort of politeness does surprisingly much damage and has half the base indebted to him. You suspected he wasn't honest, when he reported back about those missing supplies to you?"

"As a matter of facts, I was. I caught him on something like that before but it has never been anything serious." Detalus exvented loudly. "I could have probably disciplined him but I felt sorry for the mech. He's been through enough. If you read his files Counter, you'd know that he's the last person anyone would accuse of being a Con spy."

"Because his hometown got hit in an airraid." Counter frowned his optical ridges. "Yes, I read his file. I admit that would be a very good motivation to hate the Decepticons. Still, some things were not explained by that file. Low-Key – and I am aware of how suspicious everything she sais may sound – mentioned that Outride had a non-standard inbuilt weapon that showed up on her security scanners. The medics wouldn't confirm it however for confidentiality reasons. Do you know more about the matter by chance?"

"Hmm? Nothing I'd know about. Maybe you'd like to ask him yourself?"

"If I thought, I will get an honest answer." Counter sighed. "Nobot will own up to having an acid weapon, once the scientists start the gossip going about the cuffs on the prisoner transport being sabotaged by weapon-grade hydrafloric acid. I told them of course to keep it confidential, but I'm sure the information leaked already before they reported the details to me."

Detalus nodded. "If I were a spy, of course I wouldn't give you an honest answer, but would that mean you were out of options to catch me?" He asked in a riddle-like manner and smiled faintly, his old optics sparkled a bit brighter than before but only for an astrosecond. "Or perhaps you are asking me for permission to test his loyalty in some way?"

"If I know something about spies, then that they are cautious and swift with their lies, my own bunch included. Nothing else but catching them in the act will do and I'd rather not wait around 'till something else happens on its own. If you were a spy, what would tempt you to throw caution into the wind?"

"Well, how about a special forces commander sitting on my tail and talking to my superiors?" The mech suggested, his voice sounding as casual as ever. "Also, if Outride asks for permission to take a night off at the city, I'll let you know. You might want to check with whom he's meeting up. Does that sound satisfying to you?"

Counter allowed himself a wry smile: "All of a sudden I seem to have a lot of things to prepare. A report for example about all my findings to give to the base commander and you in two orns during a special confidential meeting that probably shouldn't even be mentioned near your assistant?"

"Then why waste your time talking with an old mech," Detalus smiled back and nodded the spec ops commander goodbye. "I hope our problem will be identified and taken care off soon. Good luck, Counter."

Contemplating his next moves, Counter Balance decided to contact the base in Iacon later, for now he needed to refuel. It was already way after midorn and his tank was running on fumes.

He could continue his plotting in the meantime. It probably wouldn't be easy to follow Outride off base unseen – the only mech on his team who'd probably be worse at sneaking around than himself would be his assistant Neon, who as his name implied looked like a glowstick in the dark.

At least Outride had an optic catching paintjob as well and speaking of it, the mech in question was currently entering the rec room, just as Counter had approached the line of waiting mechas at the energon dispenser.

oOo

The line wasn't that long and Outride noticed Counter at once, it was exactly the mech he was looking for and the opportunity to have a word with him was perfect as well. After getting his energon cube filled, Outride approached the spec ops commander who had already taken a seat at one of free tables.

'Good orn, Sir. Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all Outride, not at all." Counter made an inviting gesture towards the chairs.  
The bright-green mech took a seat vis a vis Counter and tried to hide his nervousness. His digits taped on the glassy cube a few times but he didn't take a sip from it.

"I was wondering," he started tentatively, "how is Low-Key doing?"

"Low-Key? Ah right, it was you who caught her in the act. She was quite sure of herself when I talked with her in the prison though, seems it hasn't quite sunk in yet for her in how much trouble she actually is."

"I see, I hope she understood why such things have to be reported. What if that data fell into wrong servos, right?"

"That is actually the sad part of it." Counter took a long gulp of his energon – taking his sweet time before he continued "I don't think the Cons would even care about that information. My team has not exactly a very high track record of successful missions or even a decent one."

Right, Tarpit had made that one very clear, Counter's agents weren't too successful or impressive, several of them already uncovered and on the wanted list and their own boss even seemed to share Tarpit's low opinion.

"Who knows what the Cons might be up to," Outride ex-vented and pressed the cube to his lipplates, taking a sip as well. "You should know better than to underestimate them, Sir. After all they were after you once, they could be trying to get to you by using your agents."

"For that they'd probably have to bail my 'oh so trusty' agents out of some brig first." Counter ex-vented and took another sip of energon.

This conversation was slowly starting to irritate Outride, he didn't find out anything new and Counter seemed to play dumb. Was the damn mech doing that on purpose?

"Anyway, that was very irresponsible of Low-Key. Why would she even do that?"

"That is the big question. She claims it was mere curiosity. I am not really inclined to believe that. Probably she is on the Cons' pay-list and you just interrupted her before she got into any of the real sensitive files. It really is a shame, I had planned to request her assistance with looking through the surveillance vids. I have already been trying to reconstruct what was happening but it is taking far longer than I anticipated. And after all this I don't trust anyone on this base enough to delegate this job to."

Outride almost choke on his energon.

"Low-Key working for Cons? No way," he whispered. "If you need any assistance, I would be honored to help you, Sir."

"Very generous, however I have noted that you have taken it upon yourself to take over duty shifts for about anyone on this base. As an officer, I have to decline and theoretically I need to remind you that your own duties in tactical come first – so feel yourself reminded of it, not that I am in the direct line of command for you anyway. With Low-Key out of the count and our most likely suspect I got the time now to search through everything thoroughly before my next meeting with General Quasar."

"Oh, no, no, it's no problem at all," Outride shook his helm. "I only help a few of my friends out, if I see they have troubles with the duties given to them, that's all. And that doesn't affect my effectiveness at the tactician's office. I'm always doing my best so that the master Tactician isn't disappointed with my work."

"He might rather be disappointed with… ah excuse me, here I am sitting, talking and talking, and I have yet so many surveillance tapes to look through. Who knows which evidence might still turn up. It is always those little details the culprits are missing." With that Counter hastily stood up, disposed of his by now empty cube in the recycling bin and hastily retreated out of the rec room.

The bright-green mech watched him go, his face expression not too happy about it.

"Disappointed with what?" he asked himself silently and couldn't figure out what Counter had had in mind. That made him a bit more nervous. Not knowing about things that others might know, was something Outride really despised.

Finishing up his own cube, he stood up and went back to his work. Maybe he would find out soon which problem the master tactician could possibly have with him. And even if not, next orn he would meet with Tarpit and after that, events would take entirely new turn.

oOo

As soon as the door had closed behind him, Counter allowed himself a smirk. Now that the bait was laid out, it was only waiting – well, almost. While Counter had said he would go back to the security hub and he would go there later – if only to make sure he didn't miss it when Outride was doing something suspicious, he had one other place on his list to go first.

The mech at the comms station only nodded to the ops-officer showing up in his domain in passing, he was too engrossed with chatting to pay him much attention. Getting at a different console Counter opened an encrypted channel to Iacon. His message was short: "Send BJ to the following coordinates," before he set a meeting point outside the base.

For what was coming he would need some reinforcements.


	6. Down the rabbit hole

**Warning: This chapter contains an erotic themed scene! If you want to skip it, jump right to the next chapter.**

* * *

The downtown bar called "Tin'n'Lead" was as always crowded with the Autobots. This orn, however, everybot seemed listless, the barkeep was polishing empty cubes with an expression of utter boredom, there was not much chatter to be overheard with most soldiers staring into their drinks and taking small sips as if trying to stretch the engex or highgrade to last for the entire evening. Payday at the Macron Gamma base was still a few orn away and it showed. Usually Outride wouldn't have visited the bar with such a poor timing but as many times before, he wished to be seen here before he could wander off to the actual rendezvous place which Tarpit had called him to. The two Decepticon-spies had ways to contact each other and having only one meeting spot would have been much riskier.

After a cube of engex, Outride decided it was high time to get going. Without saying goodbye to anybot he sneaked away. Trying not to bring too much attention to himself he strode through the back-alleys. His destination was a few streets away. He knew Tarpit would wait the whole night, if he needed to but Outride didn't like keeping bots waiting.

oOo

Counter hadn't dared to follow Outride into the bar – the bar could have a secret escape tunnel or hidden rooms or… Counter was unceremoniously interrupted in his musings by his comm-unit giving two buzzes of static – the signal that their target was leaving by the backdoor – how anticlimactic.

As not to stand out in the night like a glowstick in the pit, Counter had painted his white finish over with some cheap gray spray-paint. And as he followed his target at some distance he couldn't help but think that this stupid paint was itching like crazy.

His agent didn't have that problem, Blackjack briefly nodded at him when he caught up and slipped back into the shadows as if he had been doing so for his entire activation time. It was hard to believe he had still been a maintenance mech not too long before, nor that he had endured groons in the medbay being rebuilt right before being recruited into Ops. Anyway, aside from a few orange flame decals Blackjack's paintjob was almost completely black as his newly chosen designation suggested. Maybe at least this agent would prove to be somewhat competent? Counter didn't dare to put much hope into this thought though, all his agents had issues, he just hadn't encountered Blackjack's yet.

oOo

Completely unaware that he was tailed, Outride moved quickly. The streets were empty at this time but he still didn't want to stay out in the open for too long. He knew the place where Tarpit was waiting, they had had their secret meetings there before. Outride was about to cross the next street when he heard pedesteps a short distance behind him. He slowed down and turned his helm to check who was coming.

Some gray mech walked around the corner, leaned to a wall for a moment, before he staggered into a side alley. The next thing to be heard was the sound of half processed energon being purged.

Assuming that there was no danger Outride moved on, the meeting place was close after all. Some mech overcharged on highgrade wasn't something to care about, even if for some reason his frame looked somewhat familiar. The bright-green mech exvented and marched on right to the staircase at the end of the alley.

oOo

Inwardly Counter cursed, Outride had most likely seen him. He could only hope that the different paintjob and his fast acting as being overcharged had been enough to trick the other mech – that and that Blackjack would be able to continue with the pursuit in his stead, because he would have to follow at a far greater distance now. That was when his comm-link pinged for his attention again:

:Problem, boss. Our mech just entered a nondescript building with a guard at the door,: Blackjack reported dutifully.

:Can you follow him?:

:Only if I want an energy-dagger to the guts the moment give a false response or some other nasty surprise,: the agent answered quickly, obviously not fond of that idea at all.

:Fine, check whether the place has surveillance on the outside or other exits and else wait till I'm there unless our target leaves. I'm open for suggestions.:

oOo

The metal stairs had led him down to a heavy door and Outride knocked twice. The door opened without a sound, revealing the bodyguard at the entrance who had gazed down on him with a flat expression. But Outride had confidently announced: "I'm a costumer," and got let in without a hitch. The door shut tight behind him.

The underground facility known as 'Rotor-Rabbit' was one of the few places in the city where a mecha who knew where to look could find some not-so-legal entertainment. Outride had been here before but he always avoided being seen in a place like that. Luckily not many mechas from the base knew about the Rotor-Rabbit and those who did weren't too willing to talk about it. Tarpit on the other servo, seemed to know that place well – he even had a friend in here, which worked in their favor. Outride walked to the bar, the red, soft carpet muting his pedesteps completely. Right next to the counter was the stage with two metal poles where some femmes danced, their armors not covering much of their frames and yet that was only a tease for customers waiting for other attractions.

oOo

Outside the two Autobot agents had met up again and were watching the only visible entrance from a nearby building's roof. Another two mechas had knocked on that door during the last three breems and had been allowed in – the place was probably larger inside than its small dimensions were suggesting.

"A private club?" Blackjack threw a suggestion.

"Possible. Or a meeting of crystal-smokers-anonymous. Any other spec ops group but us would probably know about it, but not that they'd share such intel," Counter ground out.

"We could ask the local law enforcers…" Blackjack didn't complete the sentence at the dispraising gaze of his commander. "Yeah okay, best case they verify who we are and keep us there all night, worst case they are in the pockets of the mecha who runs that place. So what other options do we have?"

"Can we get closer?" Counter finally asked after some pondering – he hadn't seen any cameras or the like, but then he wasn't an active field agent. Blackjack may have been new on the job, but still had vastly more training at spotting surveillance than himself.

"Well yes, I think I can get us to the east side of the building unseen but what then?"

"Then we see if we can get onto the other roof and improvise from there." Counter shrugged, they were rapidly running out of ideas and time anyway.

oOo

Outride was sipping a purple high-grade cocktail he had just ordered, when a small yet bulky femme with a dark violet, glittering armor approached him.

"Welcome to the Rotor-Rabbit, Soldier-boy. I think I remember seeing your pretty face-plate before. You must have liked our femmes since you came back for more." She smiled sweetly but her voice had a mocking tone to it. "How can we help you today?"

Outride took another sip and looked around.

"I'm here for Piffpaff."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sweetspark but are you sure you have that many credits to spent here?"

"If that's the problem," the mech who sat next to Outride at the bar suddenly cut in, "how about we share?" And with that he put his servo onto Outride's hip-plate suggestively, making him speechless for a moment.

The bulky femme narrowed her optics and eyed the two mecha, suspecting that there would be trouble brewing. Outride, still tense, swallowed the rest of his drink in a single gulp, then he turned to the other mech who hadn't taken off his servo just yet.

"Ok," he said reluctantly, "we can share her, I guess."

The femme smiled mockingly and nodded her agreement. "As you wish, my friends. But you're paying upfront."

oOo

Luckily it was relatively easy to get onto the roof as the building only had the ground floor. Unfortunately, there was not much to work with for the two agents. While there was an air-vent, it was so small that Counter would have had trouble twisting an arm in. And of course, it would have been foolish to hope for an elevator-shaft to climb down on a one-floor building. However, as Counter stalked over to the front side of the building, another mech happened to approach the front door, knocked twice and told the guard that he was 'a customer'. That was before Blackjack waved at him to get over to the vent. As Counter drew nearer and pressed an audial to it like Blackjack gestured him to do, he could feel the vibration of loud party music coming from it and heard the muffled sound of laughter and voices of many mecha. Also, he detected the smell of cheap wax and even cheaper highgrade wafting up.

They quickly made their way back down and Blackjack summed it up: "A secret bar, probably one where you can get illegal stims or maybe it is even a pleasure house. Might be safe enough to go in by the front, we could say we are new customers."

"I'll send a note to Alpha Trion first, while we won't get any backup for this, at least if something goes wrong, he'll know the place to investigate when we disappear." Counter sighed.

Surprisingly, the guard at the door didn't give them any trouble as they knocked – they didn't even have to bribe the mech. Saying they were customers apparently was enough for him.

As they made their way in, their view was drawn first to the… Counter assumed it was called 'exotic dancers'. He didn't know any mecha would strip off that much armor during wartime. To his mild embarrassment, it needed a little jab with an elbow-joint by Blackjack to make him stop staring. Anyway, Outride was there, sitting at the bar – and an unknown mech had his servo on his thigh? Before Counter could gape for too long again, Blackjack pulled him over to a table where they sat and pretend to watch the dancers while they still had a nice view of what was going on at the bar.

oOo

Outride, trying his best to act natural, reached for his credit-chip and paid his half. Piffpaff, who he knew to be one of the more 'experienced' femmes in here was quite an expensive 'entertainment' but the other mech paid for the second half and the host gave them the key-card to room number six. Soon enough the two of them got behind the red curtain which was hiding the entrance to the lower floor where a long corridor with multiple doors awaited them.

As soon as Outride was sure nobot was watching, he pushed the other mech away angrily. The not-too-tall, black grounder grinned at that reaction.

"Easy, you don't want to draw too much attention to us. Do you?"

"I don't want your filthy servos on me either," Outride hissed but Tarpit only chuckled.

"Little sacrifices are neccessary sometimes, if you want to stay undiscovered. But don't worry, you're not my type," the mech added still smiling. "I prefer mechanisms more... skillful." He opened the door to the room number six and both of them entered.

oOo

In the main room Counter grumbled into a cube of cheap highgrade – it would have looked suspicious hadn't they ordered anything.

"So, we followed Outride all the way out here just for him going to some sort of orgy with some pleasure mechs. That is not even something we could really reprimand an officer about."

Blackjack leaned back pretending to take another swig of his own cube as well.

"I doubt that. The mech he just went with didn't look like a pleasure mech and our target didn't look like he was enjoying or expecting that attention. But if they got something secret to discuss one of the backrooms would be ideal for it, we can't easily follow them there – unless we rent time with a pleasure mecha ourselves, and even then, we'd probably end up in a room too far away from theirs to spy on them."

"Not to mention that we'd risk a rust infection or catching space barnacles." Counter grouched at the idea of spending time with a pleasure mecha, which only made Blackjack chuckle. "So, what do we do?"

"One of us needs to distract her." Blackjack discretely pointed towards the dark violet femme, Outride had been talking with, "She is the one who keeps an optic on the curtain to the backroom there. I suggest that I'll handle her. In the meantime, you can try to find the right room and place a recording device on the door."

He placed something in Counter's servo that looked like a…cog-roach?! Twitching antennas and all, Counter fought down the urge to screech and shake the disgusting thing off, telling himself it wasn't real.

Blackjack raised an optical ridge. "I get it you haven't seen this model before? It has the big advantage over the old ones, any mecha who sees it will squish it first, destroying any evidence and ask questions later if at all. I suggest you play overcharged again when placing it, in case there are cameras in the corridor, your last performance was quite convincing." With that, Blackjack sauntered over to the bar to engage the femme there in a lengthy discussion. It was kind of surprising watching with what ease the other mech seemed to pull that conversation off.

With a last exvent Counter finished of his drink and then got up, slightly swaying with each step and humming along with the music. It was high time to start their little charade, shame the situation wasn't as amusing as it might seem from the outside.

His biggest problem turned out to be finding the right room to place his bug. There were several on both sides of the corridor, once he had finally entered the lower level. Leaning to a wall as if he had trouble with his equilibrium-chip, Counter dialed his audials up, hoping to hear the voice of his target. If only the music wasn't so loud…

oOo

The room number six was a large recharging room with a huge berth and an oversized mirror behind it. It was brighter here than in the corridor because of all the little, colorful lights twinkling. The decorations inside were mostly in pastel colors while pictures of white rotor-rabbits were hanging on the walls. On a berth, behind a half-transparent curtain, sat a grounder femme – all in white and gold and with not too much of an armor. Her ruby optics and biolights shimmered a bit brighter when she saw her guests.

"Tarpit!" She smiled and rose from her berth to greet the black-framed mech. "How nice of you to finally stop by. And I see you brought a friend," she took a long, judging look at Outride. "Nice indeed. Did you bring something else for me, perhaps?"

Tarpit smiled back at her but his smile had more mockery to it than anything else.

"Always so greedy... But as a matter of fact, I have something for you indeed." He pulled out a very small cube with red shards of crystal inside and placed it on the berth. Piffpaff immediately took it and hid it in her drawer but Outride knew that it was probably red energon. Even small amounts like those shards could give a mecha a kick of pure energy and for Piffpaff's work that was most likely a must-have. "Seeing you here is getting very expensive, dear," Tarpit went on watching the femme closely. "I hope you will return the favor."

"Of course," she assured him, "You guys are safe here, I'll take care of everything. So, are we even?"

"We'll see about that. Anyway," now the mech turned to Outride who was standing next to the door, "I have something for you as well." He sat on the berth and very carefully opened a bigger, dark box he had pulled from inside his trunk.

Outride walked closer and smiled upon what he saw. Three, neon-green vials of hydrafloric acid.

"Perfect," he whispered and took the first one, assembling it within the supply-tank of his inbuilt acid squirt gun.

oOo

"…Tarpit…brought a friend…" Counter would probably be deaf for a decaorn after this mission, his audials were near shutting down and he was developing a really nasty processorache. But unless 'sharing' was a common deal in this questionable establishment that had to be the right room.

He placed the small bug on the doorframe, once the door opened it would crawl inside on its own. Until then it would at least record and submit any sound it could catch from the conversation in there. That would have to be enough. The spec ops commander had to retreat before he could get caught.

oOo

Not that anyone inside that room was in a great hurry to leave. Tarpit was currently lying outstretched on that berth and enjoying Piffpaff's very special service.

"Oh yes, right there!" he groaned before turning towards Outride who was sitting at the side and asked: "So why is that Ops officer still snooping around your base?"

"You really want to talk about that right now?" The bright-green mech replied trying not to sound as awkward as he felt.

"Not as if you have anything better to do, unless you want to join in after all?" Tarpit cast him an evil grin.

Piffpaff raised her helm for a moment and winked at Outride who rolled his blue optics.

"I'd only consider that, if it was likely to make you to shut up, Tarpit. And no offense Piffpaff but you're not exactly my type."

Both the white-framed femme and the black-framed mech gave a light chuckle at that statement.

"Not enough wings, hmm?" Tarpit commented snidely and Outride sent him a poisonous glare. "I've heard what you did for the Seeker prisoners. As generous as that was, it backfired and brought attention to your base. Now you have your Spec Ops-officer there and soon you'll probably have even more agents – especially after using that little gift from me. I'm worried about you Acrid."

'You're worried about yourself,' Outride thought but what he said aloud was: "I won't contact you for some time then. It is surely going to be hot, no point of taking unnecessary risks. Or perhaps you worry I could sell you out once it gets dangerous?"

There was a moment of silence between them until another low, pleasured sound escaped Tarpit's lip-plates.

oOo

By now Blackjack was sitting back at the main room, carefully nursing a sickeningly colorful energon-cocktail with far too much crystal powder decoration that the violet femme apparently had talked him into. Counter did not want to think too much about why the Pit that concoction came with two straws or why the waitress had commented on Blackjack and him being 'sooo cute'.

Listening in on the transmission from the bug, Counter felt like he was about to melt through his chair from pure embarrassment. Maybe it was a good thing that bug didn't have a video to transmit.

:Let's simply hope we'll never have a chance to find out either way. But yeah, you'd have to be a complete pushover to break from what those Autobots call 'interrogation'. Mmm... Piff... Exactly there! …you really have no idea how much you are missing out, Acrid. There is no mechanism on this side of Cybertron who offers ultrasonic massages like these.:

:I aim to please.: The femme was purring at the praise.

Across from Counter, Blackjack almost choked on his energon.

"I think we've really heard enough here," Counter commented, while the other mech was trying to clear his intake.


	7. Out to get you

The new orn on the Autobot base began with a typical morning drill. Barely awake Outride had staggered out of his berth and dragged himself to stand at attention. Not that he had done anything particularly tiresome back in the Rotor-rabbit the last nightcycle, yet he had had to stay with Piffpaff and Tarpit long enough to make their little charade realistic. Secret meetings in places like that were of course always Tarpit's idea. Tarpit... Outride didn't like that mech and his twisted sense of humor but that didn't really matter as long as his methods were effective and so far they had been exactly that.

After the drill, most of the soldiers marched to the canteen for the morning refuel. It was there when Outride spotted the Spec Ops mech talking to General Quasar at the officers' table. The conversation seemed to be interesting and the spy started to wonder what could be possibly going on.

The chair next to Cartridge – the communications chief, was still empty so Outride took a seat and tried his best to catch as many details of the conversation at the other end of the table as possible. The officers were discussing Low-Key's case, some of them didn't want her to step down from her post since they did not believe in her betrayal and pointed out that there was still no hard evidence that connected Low-Key to the Cons.

Outride didn't really care about what the officers thought of the former security chief, he was far more interested in Counter Balance and how to arrange an accident to get rid of the mech once and for all. If only he'd had a chance to put some acid in his morning energon ration without anybot noticing. Maybe if he offered to refill the cube for the mech? No, that'd be far too obvious. And if he just poisoned the whole dispensing machine, he'd kill maybe two or three Autobots before everyone else realized the energon was lethal and there would be no guarantee that Counter would be among those first few victims.

Deep in thought, Outride didn't realize that he was staring at the Spec Ops Officer for a bit too long for it to be natural. The mech noticed it and stared right back at him.

"Do you want to add something, Outride?"

"N-no, Sir," he stuttered cursing himself inwardly. "Excuse me," he added, "I have to be going."

oOo

Now that had been an intense gaze. Had Outride realized he had been watched yesterorn? Hopefully not, but it was clear for Counter that the younger mech was getting nervous – maybe that would lead him to finally make a mistake or two?

In the meantime, Counter had requested a warrant to search the mech's quarters and trunk but since apparently nothing on this base worked fast aside the rumor mill, he had to wait for the 'ok' from general Quasar who had decided to first consult Autobot-HQ in Iacon on the matter.

oOo

Leaving the canteen in a hurry, Outride was wondering how much the Spec Ops mech already knew. Just an orn before Counter had seemed utterly clueless but now... Now Outride wasn't so sure anymore, especially with that suspicious look the other gave him when he had walked away from the table. Anyway, that didn't matter. He had a plan now of how to shut the Spec Ops Officer's mouth-plates for good in a convenient way.

All it took was to break in into the private quarters of the soldiers who had the room right above the guest-quarters and to spill a little bit of the hydrafloric acid in several spots. Soon the substance would eat through the metal surface and make the floor collapse. The mech in the room below would die, squished under tons of ceiling plates and the whole thing would be blamed on the construction that was still going on at the prison level. Knowing how thick the walls and floors of the base were, the 'accident' would happen at night. Outride could wait that long.

oOo

Later that orn Counter was in the security hub once again. Since he wanted to gather more information about that shady character Tarpit whom Outride had been meeting with, he had left Blackjack to make some discreet inquiries and set his assistant Neon over at the archives at the task of looking through the Iacon-citizen database and law records.

He himself had a different task to accomplish. Low-Key had been sure that Outride had a hidden weapon but so far there had been no proof. The medics had been completely unhelpful and the arms-master hadn't known anything either. That left the question as of how Low-Key had found out. Though asking her would probably not be the best idea – if the femme had hacked into the medical database of the basis crew she would definitely not tell him about it. She still may have copies of the more interesting scans lying around though. The only question was where?

Counter was building up yet another processor ache, he really shouldn't pull another all-nighter so soon after last nightcycle's stakeout. He was seriously considering giving up his so far fruitless search when a loud crash resounded through the hallways and soon the corridors were filling with confused mechas startled from recharge and demanding to know if the base was under attack.

oOo

Outride was at his private quarters when he heard the terrible sound of something breaking down and crashing. He smirked to himself, he knew exactly what that meant. Slowly he got up and tried to look as surprised as all the normal Autobots would be.

As he left his room he saw the chaos and confusion the event had caused. Some of the soldiers were just standing there and staring, some were starting to panic and Outride was sure he could hear somebot calling for a medic. He strode toward the place where the largest group of mechas had gathered. One of them was loudly commenting: "…it just collapsed but our medic was there in no time. He's online but they took him to the medical wing."

Counter had survived that? Outride couldn't believe it. How lucky had a mech to be for that? But even if he had, he must have been severely injured. Maybe he would offline anyway? He had to make sure of that.

Without thinking much, he ran to the med-bay. He needed to know what state Counter Balance was in. When he got there, medics were already busy but the bot on the operation table was not the Spec Ops officer – it was the soldier from the quarters above who happened to be nobot else but the lazy security guard Tapwire.

Where the Pit was Counter?

oOo

Counter as the mech unofficially on security duty was doing his best to mitigate the sudden chaos. He had informed both general Quasar and tactician Detalus of the events, called a security crew to evacuate the soldiers from the damaged area and made sure the medic on first response was called in to see to anybot injured. Counter could also watch on the monitors how a certain mech was sprinting towards the medbay. A good opportunity to have a word with him perhaps?

Just a breem later Counter Balance was standing at the entrance of the medical ward, where a very confused Outride was watching how an injured soldier was patched up.

"Now that mech was lucky, wasn't he? One should think an accident as this one would surely be lethal," he commented towards his suspect.

oOo

The sheer sound of this voice sent shivers down his frame and before even turning around Outride knew all too well who was speaking. The Spec Ops commander stood there safe and sound as if nothing had ever happened. And indeed, there was not even a scratch on his finish. The tactician fought back the urge to curse, he took an astrosecond to vent and calm down.

"Lucky indeed," he agreed as he finally turned to Counter Balance. "He is a good colleague of mine. The medics won't let me in for now but it looks like Tapwire will be fine."

"It is truly sparkwarming to see how much you care for the wellbeing of your comrades, Outride." The other didn't even try to not make this sound incredibly sarcastic.

The medics shared surprised glances at this statement, but Counter only turned around and walked off without another word.

Outride watched as the mech left with a perfectly faked surprise on his handsome face-plate. Deep down he knew what Counter was referring to. The mech had found something on him. But what? And how? No mecha but Tarpit and Piffpaff had known about the acid. They wouldn't betray him, or would they? But then who the Pit had warned the Spec Ops officer about the murder attempt?

The spy felt hot as if his frame was overheating, Counter turned out to be smarter than he looked and that could end very badly, very soon. He had to offline that bot and everyone who got in touch with him and then he needed to disappear – never to see this ugly base again.

"Hey Outride, are you all right? What did that mech want of you?" Welder – one of the medics, a small, silver carformer with a blue-green visor and a battlemask covering his face-plate, was about to run a full scan over his frame.

Outride blinked, snapping out of his not too pleasant thoughts.

"I'm fine, I just... It's too much stress sometimes," he vented and it wasn't even a lie this time. "Officer Counter Balanced just asked about Tapwire. For some reason, he isn't fond of me, I guess."

"Yeah, he is a weird one, he was actually trying to harass the chief medic to let him look into the medical files. I thought old Thermo would blow a fuse."

"Really?" Outride's spark pulsated nervously. "What did he want to know?"

"Something about confirming an inbuilt weapon, I think."

'No, that can't be... That can't possibly be about my acid gun!' Outride tried to deny the obvious conclusion. His energon must have frozen up in his cabling because for a moment it wasn't possible to either move or speak. 'Who told the Spec Ops loser about the weapon? Only a few of the medics knew about it. An upgrade like that was impossible to hide from their medical scanners. But aside from them...

"And what happened next?" He inquired, his voice rather hoarse.

"Old Thermo sent him running of course. None of us medics would ever let anyone see the medical files, at least if it wasn't about life and death, and that mech didn't even give any explanation. Wonder where he got that idea anyway, well it isn't all that unusual for a mecha in this army to have some ace up the armguard."

If what Welder was saying was true, none of the medics had given Counter the information. Was there somebot else who could have scanned his frame? Outride used all of his processing power to figure out who the source of that info had been. And then it hit him. Of course, it was her – who else...

"I should better be going," he stated, leaving the medic a bit confused of that sudden change in topic.

"What's the hurry?" Welder called after him but the tactician was already on his way.

He headed straight to the guard room where all the energon rations for the prisoners were prepared. It was still middle of the nightshift so not a spark was there. His officer's rank key-card worked for the door and sneaking by the security cameras Outride got exactly where he wanted in no time – at the dispenser with the low-grade. He knew that the prisoners were fed with that in the mornings. And at the moment, the only prisoner kept in the base was Low-Key. That nosy security femme who sneakily must have scanned his frame at some point and told Counter about it.

Unleashing his squirt gun, Outride smirked sarcastically. They would all think that poor Low-Key poisoned herself and meanwhile he could fabricate some evidence of her betrayal. And when the rumors spread through the base, he would find a way to quietly offline Counter Balance.

oOo

Low-Key groaned as the guard made a racket to roust her in the morning. She had been up and awake all night thanks to the two overcharged afthelms in the next cell over. Those jerks had not only returned way after curfew yesterorn, no they had started a brawl with the guard who let them in. Why they had been locked in the same cell was beyond her as well. They had continued to brawl for half the night and drunkenly caroled and argued for the rest. Now that they were properly hung over they were shouting insults at the guard who seemed to have far too much fun making as much noise as possible.

Maybe after she had her morning energon she could take another nap?

"Not that I have any duties at the moment," Low-Key thought bitterly.

The next thing she noticed was a loud crash from the neighbor cell. One of the two mechs was writhing on the ground, energon foaming at his lipplates. The guard was obviously concerned, ordering the second mech to get away from him.

Then a sharp pain ran down her entire intake and with a staticky sound as her vocalizer failed, she dropped her own cube, the leftover energon sizzled as it splashed over the floor of the cell, reacting violently with the metal. Her tank was burning from the inside, she sank to her kneejoints in sheer agony and then finally collapsed right next to the prison wall.


	8. Hide and Seek

It was not a good thing to receive a report like this first thing in the morning. General Quasar read over the datapad again. True, he had been woken up by the noise when part of the ceiling had fallen but that did not explain why there was one more soldier offline and another one in critical condition in the med bay. Now it wasn't only Tapwire with his crushed limbs in medical care, the medics were also fighting for Low-Key's spark at this very moment, as the corrosion from the contaminated low-grade she had been served seemed to progress faster than they could remove the dissolving parts safely. Quasar looked over to his old friend Detalus: "This is a complete mess! Where is Counter Balance?"

The Master Tactician who skimmed through the reports as well looked deep in thought as if some puzzle-pieces slowly settled into the right places in his brilliant processor.

"Our guest was very lucky not to get injured in the accident, his quarters got destroyed though. I saw him heading to the security hub last nightcycle, maybe that is where he stayed? There's a chance he saw the whole thing on the monitors but judging by how tired he was yesterorn, he might be as well still recharging. I'll sent somebot to inform him."

oOo

A few breems later Counter was sitting in the general's office and staring at the very same datapad that had already greeted the other two mechs in the morning.

"Our culprit is getting nervous." He concluded, taking a look into the report from the science team that had checked the remaining evidence. "And he was using hydrafloric acid again. I suggest not to wait for the 'ok' from HQ and to do a contraband search through all of the quarters. They have been evacuated anyway, so the soldiers can simply stay in the rec-room until we are done. But I fear Outride has disposed of the empty acid capsules already. With some bad luck, he has dropped them off in another mecha's quarters and we apprehend the wrong suspect again. We need to scan him for that hidden weapon."

oOo

It had been after the morning drill, soldiers at the canteen had kept whispering about some accident on the cell-block and Outride had overheard it. Now he needed only to check, if Low-Key was indeed offline as planned and come out with a way to offline Counter Balance too. He went to the security hub – watching records from the morning events seemed like the best way to find out everything. Diode, who was supposed to take a morning shift there would probably gladly switch with him without a second thought.

To his surprise, Diode wasn't there and the door to the security hub was locked. His officer's key-card opened it, however, even if Outride wasn't a member of the security team. Quickly, he searched for the records from the prison-wing. Watching didn't lift his mood though, his plan had failed – not only had Welder arrived on time to help Low-Key but there had also been another unwanted victim. So much for his idea to make this look like a suicide attempt.

The only thing he could do now, was blaming the poisoning on the mecha who had prepared the energon for the prisoners. Who had on early prison shift this orn? Nipflix? Mixmash? He didn't remember. Wasting no time, he strode to the canteen, hoping that the bots there would give him the right name. Before he could reach his destination, he stumbled upon Diode.

"Oh, here you are, Outride. Good that I found you. The general ordered me to call for you just now."

oOo

In the office of General Quasar, the three commanding mechs sat waiting in silence. Two security guards had been summoned as well and were now standing on one side of the door each. But the breems passed and there was no sign of Outride.

Finally Counter Balance rose from his chair: "I'm heading back to the security hub and check what is keeping him," he excused himself.

At the hub, the first thing he noticed was the unlocked door. He remembered locking it when he had left this morning. The code was supposed to have kept the soldiers out of this place but an officer could override it of course. While the room was empty, a quick check of the last files opened showed the brig, the last breems of the unfortunate prisoner and Low-Key collapsing in the neighbor cell.

Counter opened his own comm-link while he checked the security feed of the last few breems for Outride.

: Blackjack! I think our target is getting active again, standby for new orders and be ready to take action immediately! :

He caught a glimpse of an acid-green frame on one of the monitors and froze the frame, that was Outride exiting the security hub seven breems ago…

oOo

Six and the half breems earlier Outride decided that it was time to run.

The assassination attempt had backfired with unnecessary casualties, the Spec. Ops commander had been gathering evidence against him, Autobot medics had scans of his frame and knew of his inbuilt acid squirt weapon and now, to top that all off, the general himself was calling for him. That couldn't be good, he was rarely ordered to report to Quasar's main office. So instead of going, he dashed to his private quarters with the intent of taking his hidden energon stash and then escaping the base once and for all. But as soon as he got to his quarters he saw the Autobot soldiers inspecting it, looking for contraband or evidence of his betrayal. Outride didn't dare to get any closer. He needed to leave the Macron Gamma base right now! Maybe Tarpit could help him get energon later.

He rushed to the main entrance hoping that the guards hadn't received any orders to apprehend or stop him yet. The two mecha standing in front of the entrance looked like they were about to enter recharge from boredom. Strangely enough they were not members of the security staff but regular grunts. But then it kind of made sense, as the security team was currently busy searching all private quarters, Tapwire and Low-Key were in the medbay and another bunch of them was probably guarding the latter – after all Low-Key was officially still a prisoner. That worked for Outride just fine, he didn't even have to say anything – his officer rank key-card and ID spoke for him and those poor, clueless Autobots didn't dare to ask for his reasons to leave the base.

As soon as he got outside, he transformed into his car-mode and drove towards the city where he could hide himself for now and contact Tarpit later. Little did he know, that Counter had an agent outside of the base and his swift escape didn't go unnoticed.

oOo

On the roof of an abandoned building, halfway between town and base, a black mech with bright orange flame decals was zooming in on the shape of the lone green carformer speeding down the still somewhat operable road.

"Now what is he up to?" Blackjack wondered briefly but before he could decide on which actions to take, he was interrupted in his musings by a comm-call from his boss.

: Target moving? Yeah, you could call it that, racing to town would be more correct,: he responded.

: You mean you have sight on him, agent? : Counter Balance suddenly sounded very interested.

: Yes, do you want me to take him out before he is out of my reach? :

Blackjack was still new in the business of being a spy but he was not new to the necessities of war anymore.

: Negative. We need him alive for an interrogation. Shoot to disable. Only kill if necessary. I'm calling reinforcements, we are gonna be there in five or six breems, I'll update you on our arrival time. Counter over and out. :

With no further ado, Blackjack retrieved the box with his sniper rifle from his trunk, assembled it in three short servo-motions and rushed over to the other side of the roof so he had better aim.

One of the grounder's tires in the sight of the scope, Blackjack fired…

oOo

Outride didn't know what had hit him, all he knew was that his left-front tire exploded with a loud 'bang' and he lost his grip on the road. Before he could do anything about it, his vehicle-mode fell to the side and started to rollover. Thankfully the road to the city had been in not-too-perfect state which hadn't allowed him to drive at his full speed, still the crash hurt as Pit. Outride felt his armor getting dented, his window broke and shattered, leaving tiny pieces of glass on the bumpy road. When the momentum finally died down he transformed into his root-mode and tried to fight back the dizziness and pain.

'Why?' He kept asking himself absentmindedly while still spread on the empty road. "Why did that had to happen just now? To have a blowout like that? How fragging unlucky!"

He had to get up and get out of the open space before somebot in the base would notice his crash and call for help. Getting back on his pedes, Outride limped to the nearest, half-destroyed building, he couldn't drive anymore, which made his escape even more difficult.

oOo

"Don't try to talk me out of it!" Detalus had actually arrived at the exit before the security response team Counter had called for did. And the old mech was not willing to listen to reason. "It is my fault that I didn't see through his friendly facade much sooner..."

"And that is exactly the reason why you shouldn't go!" Aside from being ancient and completely out of training thanks to your desk job – but Counter didn't voice the latter. The old tactician looked like he could barely drive the distance let alone catch up with and apprehend a youthful carformer.

"If you think that my responses will be compromised, I can give that right back to you," Detalus replied "Or wasn't Outride the one who apparently sold you out to the Cons?"

"Maybe but I think I'm still impartial enough not to just shoot him on sight." What was keeping that damn security team, Counter wondered.

"Impartial, after enjoying Shockwave's hospitality?" Detalus pulled up an optical ridge.

"Well, I …"

"Is this a bad moment to say that I want to help catch him too?"

Both mechs turned around – still no trace of the response team, just Diode. The young mech had a plasma rifle slung over his shoulders and nervously shuffled from one pede to the other. "I thought he was my friend. We all did…and now both Tapwire and Low-Key are in the medbay and Boltcutter is dead because of him," he mumbled as sort of an explanation.

That was when a three-mecha security team finally turned around the corner.

It had taken until the arrival of Welder though, before the group could set out to catch the runaway traitor who already had several breems of a helm start. The medics had finally given in and confirmed that a hidden acid weapon had been found during Outride's previous medical scans and the rumors had spread so nobot on the base doubted anymore that Outride was a Con spy. Running like this after the nightcycle's incidents was basically a plea of being guilty anyway.

In the end both Detalus and Diode were tagging along with Counter and the security team. Officially being a non-combatant Welder was following their team at some distance. Counter had put a pede down at least in this case, if Outride shot acid during his apprehension, they might not make it back to base without instant medical help so it was safer for all of them that Welder served as their backup.

It didn't take overly long for Detalus' specialized sensors to spot the limping green grounder making his way towards the town further down the road. The old Cycleformer's engine revved angrily.

oOo

It was impossible to get to the city fast enough to shake off the group of mecha that had suddenly appeared on the raod behind him, with his balance thrown off by the loss of one tire and the dented plating on his leg. However, Outride could see an abandoned complex of old buildings that stood along the road and hadn't been demolished yet. Forcing himself to run, he reached the nearest one. It used to be a big multi-level store. He had worked in a store like that before the war but now that old life felt like eons ago.

The main entrance was actually door-less as if somebot had broken in for plundering before. Outride went inside and looked around. It seemed like the walls were not going to tumble down on him. Perfect! Quickly he walked down the old staircase and entered the underground section, dark and with many pillars all around. He turned on his headlights and searched for the potential exit on the other side of the basement. The hall was large however, he didn't get far when he noticed suspicious sounds. Pedesteps and something rattling? Impossible! Or did his pursuers catch up to him already? He switched off the headlights and hid behind one of the pillars getting his blaster ready just in case.

oOo

Blackjack suppressed a curse. He had had to hurry to get down from the roof he had been hidden on when his target had limped towards a ruined building. He could have tried to shoot the mech a second time but off the road there had been too much rubble in the way for a hit to one of the legs.  
So he had sneaked into the same building without turning on lights and as silently as possible. Until he had seen the silhouette of a crouching mech in the gloom and decided to tackle him.

Unfortunately it hadn't been his target, but the top half of an old display mannequin for armor parts. That of course had made quite some noise. And then it had suddenly gone even darker in the room. If that had been Outride turning off his lights in alarm, then he couldn't be on this floor anymore. Blackjack picked himself up from the floor and started to search for the stairs. The big question was where to search? Up or down?

oOo

Outride waited but nothing really happened, the sound of the pedesteps went quite so he decided to check what was going on. Lurking in the dark with only the gloomy blue glow from his biolights he walked through the hall. Maybe he had overreacted and maybe it had just been petrorats making the noise. Anyway, if that was a store, he could look for something useful for his escape. He reached a second staircase and climbed the stairs up, to the shopping area where it was brighter and more cramped by old junk that no mecha had wanted to steal. Moving slowly and quietly he went from one mannequin to the other, trying to spot a new tire like he needed. After a while he saw a set of a sports-car size tires. 'Good enough,' he thought and got down to change them.

oOo

Detalus had pushed his engine to almost redlining – the others had actually had trouble keeping up with him, but it still took him a while to reach the old store building. His former student was in here somewhere. He needed to find him, needed to look into those optics and finally see what was truly hidden behind that smiling faceplate, else he might never be able to trust any mecha ever again.

"Move around that building!" he ordered the three guardsmecha, "Make sure you find all the other exits and holes and seal off or guard them. Echo, I want you to use your sonar to make sure the place has no underground connections to the neighbor buildings."

"If I use those, Outride will notice," the guard remarked.

"I know, but he'll probably hear us enter anyway." Detalus waved the concern off.

In the meantime, Counter had studied what appeared to be just some sort of black scratch-mark.

"Outride is probably not alone in there, one of my mechas is in there as well so before you shoot, make sure to identify your mark. And I say it again: Shoot to disable only, we want that traitor alive," the Ops commander added.

That revelation had taken Detalus somewhat by surprise thought he had thought that he had seen some movement from afar, he had not realized it had been another mecha but anyway he hardly cared, finding Outride was more important.

They neared the building from the side where a wall was giving them cover, if anyone should try to shoot at them from one of the few upper windows. Then Echo set off a few sonic waves – Detalus could feel the ground vibrating slightly under his pedes.

Counter was quick to slip through a crack in the wall into the dark room beyond and after an astrosecond, Detalus and behind him Diode followed.

oOo

The floor under his pede trembled and at first Outride thought the building might actually collapse after all but his processor worked fast and he recognized what that vibrations meant – Echo, one of the prison guards from the base, used his sonar device to scan the store. And that meant the Autobots were already here. Good thing that he was able to transform and drive again. The best way to escape was through the basement area, the hall was dark and big enough to hide his presence and also it could have more than one exit. Still he didn't know how many Bots were sitting on his tail. If it was more than one squad, which meant five mecha, he would be in trouble. They knew where he was and they would probably split to corner him so there was no time to lose. Outride strode back to the staircase when he registered some movement in the dim room. Somebot was already there!

oOo

Realizing he had been noticed, Blackjack offlined his own optics and turned his headlights on at full power for a brief astrosecond, hoping this would buy him a chance to blind the enemy and to close the distance between them. He jumped forward and smashed his fist in the other mech's jawline.

The punch sent the bright-green mech onto a shop shelf behind him, it started a chain of shelf, mannequins and products falling down one after another like a row of domino pieces. Outride didn't fall though, catching his balance he activated the blaster and fired two times in Blackjack's direction.

Being too close BJ hadn't been able to dodge the shots completely. And while they had been fired blindly one grazed an audio antenna, making it crackle painfully in static. The second shot had glanced off his leg plating leaving a biting but at least harmless burn mark.

With a shout of rising anger, Blackjack grabbed a piece of one of the mannequins and slammed it down on the arm with the blaster.

Not able to shoot, the traitor unfolded his inbuilt wankel shield and hit the agent right into the helm with it.

The blow to his already damaged audio made the black-framed mech stagger a few steps back in the intense white-hot pain. That gave Outride another chance to attack.

The Con folded the shield and transformed his left servo into his most lethal weapon – the squirt gun filled with the hydrafloric acid. Before he could shoot, however the dark mech's headlights suddenly shut off and the room was pitch black again instantly.

Blackjack rolled over to the side and took cover behind one of the pillars and a turned-over shelf.

A thin flush of acid shot from the squirt-gun and flew into darkness. Shelves and other rubbish splashed with it made a hissing sound while melting.

oOo

The odor of melting metal hit Outride's sensors but there was no screaming, which meant that the damn Autobot – whoever he was – had gotten out of this unharmed. The pair of blue optics frantically scanned the dark surrounding but couldn't find the target. Only two vials with acid left, there was no sense wasting them on shooting blindly.

Outride cursed under his breath and activated his blaster once again but then something caught his attention – there were several sets of biolights shining brightly in the dark, which meant that more Autobots were coming his way. He recognized the familiar three-color scheme of Diodes helm illumination. If only it had been this moron alone, Outride wouldn't be worried but a low-ranked soldier like Diode wouldn't be sent here all on his own of course. Quickly judging his options, the ex-tactician decided to set a little trap.

He wasn't stupid, he knew that the Autobots wanted him alive and that was working to his advantage. They wouldn't open fire without aiming for non-vital framepart first but he certainly would, after all there was nobot that he would have missed or spared. The darkness also worked well for his plan, maybe if not for his stupid, blue biolights making him glow. He quickly found a simple solution to that problem, though. They were in the shopping center after all, a big fashion store filled with old armor-parts, ornaments and even clothing. Grabbing the first raincover-cloak he spotted, Outride quietly moved in the direction of the red, green and blue biolights. Staying close to the floor he waited for Diode to come closer.

The Autobots had thought he was their prey but it was gonna be the other way 'round...

oOo

Blackjack had lost sight of his target and the infernal buzzing in his damaged audio just wouldn't stop, making it impossible to hear where Outride had suddenly vanished to. Additionally, there was a new set of unfamiliar biolights. Not sure if that was his own reinforcement or whether Outride had called for a Con crony of his for assistance earlier, Blackjack opted to wait with a drawn blaster of his own in his hiding place until he was sure whom he might be shooting at.

oOo

Much to Counter's dismay Detalus and Diode had both strayed from his side as soon as they had squeezed through the crack in the wall. With all the empty shelves, the debris and loosely strewn around garbage in the gloomy space, it was nearly impossible keeping the others in his line of sight. And it was very hard not to make noise at basically every single step he took. Together maybe they could have herded Outride to one of the exits where a guard was waiting to catch him but like this, it would be a drawn out hide and seek game with the additional thrill of potential friendly fire. He couldn't hear or see anything moving aside from the two others, but then there was that biting smell of something acidic, and he decided to carefully inch into that direction.

oOo

Diode hadn't even realized he had wandered off on his own. One moment the Master Tactician and the spec ops officer had been right beside him and suddenly he was only surrounded by shelves and half broken mannequins in the gloomy store's interior.

Nervous, he was clutching his blaster a bit tighter. Movement to the right?! No, just another one of those creepy doll things. Neither Decepticons nor Neutrals had bothered with stealing them as the plastic they were made of wasn't even good for the smelter. A ragged piece of tarp was waving slowly in the draft. And Diode barely held back from blindly shooting at it. He hadn't even realized he was that nervous. What was it, the gloom? The irregular creaking noises? Or the idea of being alone with someone who had tried to murder his friends?

He frantically tried to remember anything he had ever heard about following a suspect into an abandoned building – which wasn't much since he had never risen above the rank of a traffic cop before the war and he couldn't remember it having ever been covered during his time as a security guard. All he knew basically summed up to 'wait for reinforcements and don't go in alone' – which only helped to make him more nervous, considering he accidentally had separated from the others.  
But hey, as long as he moved carefully and used that massive shelf there as a cover, nobot could sneak up on him, right? Right?


	9. One bad orn

**Warning: This chapter contains violence! If you want to skip it, jump right to the next chapter.**

* * *

The guards had blocked off all the possible exits of the old department store and yet, if the building was connected to the vast tunnel-systems of Cybertron's sub-levels, there was not much they could do. Their chances to stop Outride from escaping weren't all that great. It all depended on the team inside to corner the flighty spy.

Welder hated that he had to sit this out but his orders had been very clear, he was to wait across the street behind some solid cover and watch the teams' life-signals. Unless a medical emergency of course.

And all of a sudden, Welder saw the Diode's signal taking a nosedive into critical.

With a curse he jumped over the low wall he had been crouching behind and ran towards the building. If this didn't count as an emergency, he didn't know what would...

oOo

Diode was on the floor, leaking energon. Outride watched him for a short moment not sure, if the mech was still online or not. Pretending to be one of the mannequins had allowed the ex-tactician to get close enough to shoot his quarry right into the back-struts from a very close range. That was still a much less painful way to go than by the hydrafloric acid so Diode should be thankful to him – they had been friends for quite some time after all so Outride could at least spare him the unnecessary suffering. Also, too much screaming would have lured all the other Bots here in no time, while the quick and nearly silent shot seemed to have gone unnoticed. The bright-green mech gave his old colleague another glance and went into direction of the next set of shimmering biolights.

oOo

Detalus had heard when Diode had collapsed. The mech had been to the other side of Counter Balance and probably moved too far off. The only faint light had been from Outride's blaster being fired, he must have concealed himself somehow and gotten very close to the young guard. It would have been safer to keep his distance but Diode needed his help. The guardsmech might not be the smartest of bots but at least he was trustworthy and he didn't deserve to simply offline, if it was in Detalus' power to help.

oOo

Counter didn't know how the traitor had found Diode that fast and how he had even gotten close enough for the unfortunate guard to go down without giving any sign of alert. Meister in the novels could simply melt into the shadows. But Outride couldn't. And neither did Counter. He doubted any of the agents under his command would be able of something like that. Though Temperance had once claimed that there was an easy way to become invisible. 'This!' She had held the object in question in front of Counter's optics 'It works like magic! Just please, don't tell Vault I said that, sir.' He remembered it had sounded ridiculous back then, it still sounded ridiculous actually, but in this dangerous situation it might be worth a try. Maybe somewhere in this dilapidated store he could find a leftover roll of ducttape?

oOo

The light he had spotted seemed to be moving and getting closer to the spot where Outride had left Diode's motionless frame. Soon, he recognized those teal biolights – a full-face visior and mask - it belonged to Welder. So the Autobots had brought a medic too? Outride couldn't afford them to be patched up and back in the game. All he needed was to wait for Welder to find Diode and then take him out as well.

oOo

Welder carefully knelt down next to Diode. The mech was still online but his main fuelpump had been badly damaged, was leaking and needed an immediate repair. What had taken the mech down was clearly a blaster shot from a close distance. Diode was careless but not that careless. He was still clutching a blaster but apparently hadn't fired a shot himself. Outride somehow had gotten close without being detected.

In this case he could not trust his optics or his audios, instead he turned the medical scanner to the maximum range. He wouldn't be able to see any details on it but if someone came close he'd know. Beginning the complicated process of rerouting the energon through a replacement pump, Welder started the operation.

oOo

Hidden beneath the cloak and between plastic mannequins, Outride let the medic start working. Now, concentrated on the surgery Welder was an easy target.

Sneaking closer as silently as he could, the green-framed mech aimed for the medic's helm. His blaster under the cloak let only a dim glow of blue light. Something was wrong, though. Outride could swear that something was beeping, he didn't know what. He ignored it, he was already less than two mechanometers away from his victim.

"Goodbye," he thought, rising his weapon.

Welder whirled around, the welding torch in his servo turned on to maximum capacity let out a white, darting flame. With the other hand he already dropped the tiny laser scalpel and grabbed for Diode's blaster.

Outride didn't see that coming. The white-hot flame missed his faceplate only by a few astro-inches, it was close enough however to ignite the old cloak that he had wrapped himself with. The material set on fire in no time. The mech gasped in surprise, trying to quickly extinguish the still rather small fire but to no avail.

Welder was about to shoot at him but before the medic could pull the trigger another mech crashed into Outride and tried to beat the living slag out of him.

oOo

Welder was sure he had never before seen chief tactician Detalus that angry.

As the two mechs rolled on the floor throwing kicks and punches, sparks from the burning cloak fell on the nearby mannequins and pieces of clothing. Soon the fire started to spread. Neither Detalus nor Outride had the time to notice it however. The younger mech had his faceplate and helm scratched and burning with pain from the furious slashes of the master tactician's claws. His right servo was still transformed into a blaster so he couldn't cover himself with it. The gun fired a few times, hitting random objects. As with the other mech on him it was impossible for the spy to aim. Using his left servo, Outride clutched on his opponent's neck cables.

"Get off," he hissed through his painfully cracked lip-plates.

Detalus dug his claws into the joint of the servo that clutched his neck.

"Never!" he hissed back. He was old, he wasn't strong, but he knew the weak spots of any frametype and he was going to use that knowledge and if he had to disassemble Outride wire by wire.

The bright-green mech let out a short cry, as energon dripped down his forearm but he didn't loosen his grip. His right servo transformed back from weapon-mode and he served a fierce blow into old-mech's faceplate, sending him to the ground. The burning cloak was already heating his armor up, so Outride tore it apart and tossed it at Detalus, obscuring his vision for an astrosecond.

oOo

Detalus rolled to the side trying to extinguish the fire as well as dodging whatever attack Outride was planning next. He couldn't allow Outride time to switch to attacking the medic besides them, who still had both servos full saving Diode's life. That lead to the question where was Counter? He couldn't possibly have missed both the fire and the fighting noises.

That was when he felt somebot grabbing at his ankle. It was Outride, still on his knees and with a hateful look in his optics, pulling at his leg and dragging him closer. The fisted servo raised and ready to fall onto his face-plate. Detalus reacted on instinct and covered his helm but the blow was still strong enough to break some of his dentas.

"You. Shouldn't have. Come here. Old fool," the mech was spitting out words between throwing punches.

"Get away from him, Outride!" Another mech suddenly commanded – Counter Balance had finally appeared at the scene with some delay. The sound of a blaster charging to max output could be heard. Apparently, he was ready to shoot to kill.

oOo

Contrary to most mechas the spec ops commander didn't have many biolights to begin with and he had probably done something about those to make himself harder to spot. Still Outride could clearly see his dimly lit blue optics giving away his position between a group of mannequins.

The master tactician wasn't that much of a threat, especially right now when he must have been dizzy with all the hits to his small frame, yet there was Counter ready to shoot and Welder who might join the fight if necessary. Outride stopped for a moment, thinking of his chances. More Autobots were most likely waiting outside, trying to escape would be suicide. He had another plan though.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," he laughed at the spec ops mech's order and grabbed Detalus by the handlebar on his back, lifting the small cycleformer from the floor and using him as a living-shield. "Are you sure you want to shoot at me? Somebot could get hurt in the process."

The old mech struggled but with his fragile, old frame overpowering a big carformer like Outride was almost impossible.

"What did the Decepticons promise you, Outride? Money? Fame? How did they get you to betray your comrades?" Detalus spoke up, before Counter could reply anything.

"Oh please! I'm a spy not a traitor. And you were never my comrades." The acid green mech slowly got back to his pedes and took few steps toward Counter Balance, forcing his ex-superior to move along. "Better put your weapon down, Counter and let us pass. Or else..." Instead of finishing he let the acid gun to snap out of his hidden pocket on his left forearm. "You know what it is, don't you? Ask Low-Key how she felt after just a few drops, and I still have enough acid to melt his whole helm away. So drop your blaster, now!"

Counter's dim blue optics didn't blink, neither did he move as he stared back.

Welder still kneeling beside his patient didn't move either but clutched a blaster in his servo as well.

Detalus ground out between his denta: "So you have been a Decepticon right from the beginning."  
But Outride didn't get the opportunity to answer as someone grabbed the arm with the acid gun and yanked it back forcefully. Counter Balance, with ducttape covering one of his optics and most of his biolights had approached silently from the side where the fire was still crackling.

Outride's optics widened in surprise. "How?" He thought frantically. "Who's the other one then?" There was no time to ponder it, the ground was slipping from under his pedes. With no other choice, he let Detalus go and took a swipe at Counter Balance with his now free servo.

Detalus though was not willing to simply retreat, he clutched Outride's servo and tried to wrestle him down. Outride found himself struggling against two mechs now. And the third shadowy mech he had mistaken for Counter was slowly closing in on him too, limping on one leg.

He had to end it quickly and offline those morons, else he'd fall into the Autobots' clutches and all would be lost. With a final effort he kicked at Counter's knee-joint causing the mech to lose his firm grip and almost falling to that knee. That was his chance to attack! Within a split astrosecond Outride aimed and unleashed the acid.

oOo

It all happened so fast. Detalus was kept at arms-length, Counter was struggling for his lost balance, Blackjack was still too far away and he couldn't shoot with Detalus in his line of sight. But this time it was Welder, who Outride had left out of his optics and it was the medic's turn to yank his arm back.

The stream of a sickeningly-green fluid flushed from the squirt-gun but not into Counter's direction, it splashed over Outride's own face-plate instead. The mech simply stood there for a moment, not understanding what had just happened, with Welder still holding onto his arm. Then he began to scream. And that was a type of scream Counter had never heard before, not even in Shockwave's prison. It reminded him of Crystal City's destruction and bots being molten down alive. It wasn't far from what was going on. Outride clutched at the left side of his faceplate but there was basically no face anymore, just a boiling, green mess slowly melting away. His left servo with which he touched the wound started to get eaten away by the acid too. Howling more like a cyber-animal than a cybertronian, Outride fell to his knees, green drops of hydrafloric acid splashing around him. Detalus and Blackjack instantly took a step aback, only Welder was calm enough for trying to do something.

The medic was quick to pull a vial with a colorless liquid from his tool-pack. "Hold him still," he ordered the three other Autobots. Detalus, Counter and Blackjack hesitated for an astrosecond but then tried their best to stop Outride from trashing around, and keeping him from digging his own servos deeper into his melting faceplate. Welder unceremoniously emptied the vial he was holding over Outride's helm. The liquids didn't bubble violently, they didn't even hiss when mixing, Outride was just screaming louder, if that was even possible.

"What did you do?" Counter demanded to know.

"That liquid was a base, to neutralize the acid. Turns it into salty water, if dosed right but we didn't know the exact concentration, should at least water the acid down so it won't kill him. Now that is taken care of..." Welder removed a piece of plating from Outride's arm and jabbed a needle into a thus exposed fuel line. Outride fell limp instantly in medical stasis. "Seems the base liquid did its job," Welder announced after running his scanner over the mech a final time. "It's neutralized. The guys from the science section will be thrilled. And at least I didn't have to waste a painchip on him," he muttered darkly.

Detalus looked down at what was left of his ex-assistant's formerly handsome faceplate, it wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Who sows the wind reaps the storm," he exvented shaking his helm slightly, "And to think I trusted this piece of scrap... Counter, disarm and cuff him. I'll order his transportation to drop him right into our prison block."

oOo

Counter stared down into the destroyed faceplate as well. If Welder hadn't acted, this would have happened to him.

"Thank you," he muttered in Welder's general direction, who was already fussing over Blackjack's damaged leg. Not sure the other mech had even heard him.

He removed, every weapon he could find on Outride, pulled the last unused capsule of acid out of the inbuilt squirt gun and cut the energy to the blaster in the Decepticon's other arm. They would need to search him more thoroughly later before he got out of stasis.

Quasar needed to be informed of their catch – he would probably call that interrogator TiltShift over once Outride was kicked out of the prison-medbay. And they still needed to catch that other Decepticon in town, Tarpit – though it was likely Outride who would be the tattler of the two.

Counter called the three guards in.

"Let's wrap up here."

* * *

Here's a fanart made by my friend for this chapter - art/AT-Outride-s-injury-706633995


	10. Reap the whirlwind

Less than two joors after the shooting at the old department store, the Macron Gamma base already buzzed with rumors like an Insecticons' hive. All privates and low-ranked soldiers were talking about the officer who had been caught collaborating with the Cons and about the brave security guard that had got severely wounded during the chase after said traitor.

The main medbay was busy as ever, Thermo and his team of medics had their servos full of work – Diode required an immediate energon transfusion and surgery, Blackjack got his audio receptor fixed and the master tactician had to be examined for a processor concussion, not to mention Low-Key who was still attached to a life-support system and required constant observation.

Counter seemed to be the only one from his team who didn't really need any medical help. He supervised the guards who transported the still unconscious Outride to the prison-wing and the smaller, separated medbay for inmates. Before the medic on duty there asked him out of the treatment room, he caught a glimpse of a disgusted expression on the nurse's face-plate upon seeing Outride's injury.

oOo

As soon as his audio was fixed, Blackjack led a group of ten Autobot guards to the town. Two entire squads may have looked like overkill to apprehend a single mech but after all they didn't know whether Tarpit had any more accomplices and they needed to catch that femme Piffpaff as well. While it would be very hard to pin anything on the femme, she was still a witness for some of the Decepticon meetings and could have some valuable information she might be willing to sell.

oOo

Outride woke up screaming. For a long moment he didn't know where he was or why, all he remembered was unbearable pain, the agonizing sensation of his faceplate burring. He could feel the heat and the terror as if it was on fire. He wanted to scream some more but his voice cracked and went static. Something was wrong with his vocalizer and with his optics too, apparently. His field of vision was more narrow than normal like one optic was covered. He wanted to remove whatever it was but when he tried reaching with his right hand it turned out it was striped to the metal berth. And so was his other hand, this one was lacking two fingers, his legs were immobilized as well.

He groaned, realizing what that meant – he was the Autobots' prisoner, with no hope for rescue and with a bunch of Bots wanting to get their revenge on him for his so-called betrayal.  
He begun to wriggle and struggle with the straps holding him down. It only caused him more pain but he had to get out of here somehow. If only he had a sharp object... Or a weapon... His blaster didn't respond when he tried to transform the arm and he didn't dare to activate the acid squirt gun, not after that disastrous, bad orn.

His groans and the sounds of him shifting and wriggling brought some unwanted attention. Outride heard pedesteps coming from the other room and then a femme's voice announced: "Doctor, he's awaken," with a rather careless tone. "Flailing, probably in pain," she added. "Shall I give him a morph-N chip?"

"All he could still possibly be feeling are phantom pains. So don't waste any resources." The voice of the chief medic Thermo cut in. He sounded almost bored. That was at least good as it was a sign that Outride could count himself out of danger. It was also a bad sign however, because normally Thermo would fuss over injured soldiers in a way that made them squirm to get out of medbay as fast as possible. Also what the pit were they even talking about? What phantom pains? His pain was real, as real as those metal straps trapping his servos and not allowing him to touch his burning faceplate.

"Nurse!" He called out and his own voice surprised him – it was strange, filled with static and randomly skipping from high to low pitch against his will. "I need that morph-N!" He considered saying 'please' but after what the damn Autobots had done to him it felt too humiliating.

"When do you think his trial will be doctor?" the nurse asked the medic without reacting to Outride's demand.

"That will probably be a while, when that interrogator is done with him we will have to repair him again first."

Outride's spark stopped pulsating for a dreadful astrosecond. He knew the interrogator they were talking about, he had seen him on the base before and what was worse, he had also seen how the Decepticons looked like after a 'conversation' with him. He started to struggle with the straps again, this time even more frustrated. If only one of the medics released his one good servo...

"Nurse? Doctor?" He tried once more. They couldn't ignore him like that forever, now could they?

"Nurse, if the patient doesn't stop thrashing around within two breems, disable his motor controls. I don't want to waste any more time on repairing him again because he injured himself."

"I can hear that!" He shouted, now even more furious than scared for his not-so-bright future. They were doing it on purpose, they were trying to mentally torment him, damn Bots. "You can't do that to me, you scumbags! I have rights! Cut my hands loose!"

"By the way doctor, have you heard? The higher ups have decided to drop most of the charges against Low-Key." The nurse completely switched the topic.

"Yes, I have heard. She'll get a demotion and most likely will be transferred to another base but at least she won't have to serve any more time in the brig."

Outride could only lay down and listen, he gave up his attempts to squeeze his hand through the straps because the only result that had brought was scratches and dents. More yelling and demanding wouldn't do him any good either. He needed to change his strategy, maybe not all was lost yet.

"It wasn't my doing in Low-Key's case," he started again, this time less loud than before and trying to sound apologetic. "You know me, Thermo. I was her friend. I don't know what Counter Balance has told you but you have never trust that mech, right? I'm not a murderer, believe me. So can you please free my servo? I just want to scratch my face. It really hurts."

oOo

Thermo tried not to stare at the dirty Decepticon scum in sheer disbelieve. Did he really think he would still fall for that? Thermo had been the one marking down the hidden squirt gun in Outride's medical file instead of reporting it. It had been him who had told the investigating spec ops commander to get lost, after the incident with the acid sabotaged cuffs had come to light. And it had been him who as a result had spent twenty-seven joors in the operation room trying to save Low-Key's life. After Outride's takedown, Welder had told him everything about how the Decepticon had gloated about having poisoned the femme. Something crunched in his servo.

"Doctor! We still needed that!" the nurse squeaked, as the coldfuser was compacted to nothing more than a little ball of metal in the fist of the enraged medic.

oOo

As the joor grew late, Tarpit was heading for the bar, planning to see which of the Autobot lowlifes would be there, wasting their pay.

There were indeed a few Autobots present but strangely it was not the usual crowd. It was a pretty glum atmosphere as well, the mecha not seeming to be in a chatty mood. He stepped up to the bar and ordered his usual.

"What's with that weird crowd?" he asked the depressed looking bartender with a nod at the soldiers.

"Dunno, they kinda behave like someone deactivated. Scared off all the regulars too and barely touched their drinks at all.

"How… interesting." Tarpit finally caught on that something was absolutely not right here and was about to retreat without ordering but the sound of several blasters humming behind him told him, that he had missed his chance already…

-Damn that Acrid!- he thought.

"Don't move!" somebot ordered. "Put your servos on the counter."

Tarpit knew his chance for escaping was low, too many blasters were pointing at his helm and inside the bar there was no space for transforming into his fast and agile altmode. Slowly, he first raised and then lowered his servos to the flat surface as ordered for the Autoscums to see they were empty. He had a weapon of course but reaching for it now would be simply suicide.

A pair of bots approached him at once and shoved him into the counter, cuffing his servos behind his back. One of them searched his hidden compartments for dangerous objects. Tarpit grinned when they opened his trunk – that was exactly what he had been hoping for.

His pet-petro-rat jumped out and dashed away, specially trained and kept there for unexpected situations just like this one. The Autobot soldiers opened fire but the cyber-animal was fast and small, their blasters didn't even singe it.

"Get that rodent!" the leader of the Autobot group shouted and Tarpit heard several mecha running towards the open door. He knew that his petro-rat was smart enough not to get caught that easily, especially in the darkness of the evening. It would do as it had been trained for, it would run to the next Decepticon hideout and they would pass its message on. Shame that this message wasn't exactly good – at least not for Tarpit and probably not for Acrid either. They both were screwed.

oOo

The last two orns had been the pit for Outride. Not only hadn't he received a single pain-chip, the medics kept on completely ignoring anything he was saying even after that old slagger Thermo had finally put Outride's vocalizer back into place after some crude repairs – his voice was still distorted somehow, as if all the damn medic had done was dusting it off.

Nobot else had come to exchange even a single word with him. Unfortunately it left him lots of time to think about his future. And even more unfortunately in this near future TiltShift was waiting for him.

Technically Outride knew it was an interrogation tactic to have a prisoner rust in his own coolant, so to say. But knowing and experiencing it were two completely different things. He had seen what TiltShift had done to the Seekers. For once his only consolation was that he didn't have any wings that could be torn off.

Tiltshift's visits to the Macron Gamma base had always been brief and completely focused on his 'work', not on mingling with the soldiers in the canteen. Outride wasn't even sure he'd have dared approach the massive construction mech that looked like he could snap an unlucky mecha in half with his mere servos. And apparently, if rumors were true, doing exactly that had gotten TiltShift kicked out of the Wreckers by Ultra Magnus himself.

Outride was recalling what he had heard of the mech over and over in his processor, not sure what was true. On top of that, recharge was evading him. Strapped down as he was, he couldn't even roll over to lie on his side as he was used to. So all he could do was thinking about how the prisoners he had seen being carried out of that interrogation room – because none of them had still been able to walk. It made the energon in his lines go cold with dread.

It was almost a relief when the prison-bay's door opened to allow two guards to enter. Almost…

The two walked in holding electric-rods in their servos. To his surprise one of them was his old 'friend' Tapwire, apparently back on duty. The guard had gotten injured because of him and might have held a grudge, but still he was someone that Outride knew and strangely enough that gave him some comfort. Tap wouldn't hurt him, Tap was a soft-sparked, easy-going mech. The expression on his face-plate however, was one of cold fury. Outride knew at once that this couldn't be just about the betrayal, it had to be on a more personal level. Had Diode offlined maybe? And maybe the two guards used to be more than just friends after all? Perhaps lovers? Why else would Tapwire feel so enraged over the offlining of a mere army friend? Things like that happened all the time during the war, no?

One of the guards undid the straps on his wrists and his legs while the other watched carefully ready to react. For a short moment Outride fought the urge to do something desperate but he knew how much the electric shocks would hurt and they had their guns too. The next moment they cuffed his hands anyway and removed his tires so it was futile to transform.

"Move!" Tapwire ordered pointing with the rod at the door. The mech's expression was stern and Outride didn't dare to say a word to him.

He was led past the empty cells to that one looming door of the interrogation room. He knew what that room was looking like inside, though he had never been in there himself, yet. Ironically it was Tapwire who had described that place to him, while they were sitting at the bar, Tapwire had been ordering some especially strong highgrade that orn. The guardsmech hated having to deliver prisoners to TiltShift, and the fact that he was feeling queasy about it, had always made Outride secretly laugh about his weakness.

There was no hint about that queasiness in Tapwire's expression now. Not as he wordlessly made Outride sit on the interrogation chair and not as he fastened the restraints. He didn't hesitate neither did he look back as he left Outride alone in that room with TiltShift.

"Now now, shall we begin?" the interrogator asked pleasantly as if he was just there to apply a new paintjob for Outride.


	11. Blindflight

**Warning: This chapter contains a torture scene! If you want to skip it, jump right to the second half of the chapter.**

* * *

The room was surprisingly barren – aside from the gloomy lighting and the chair in the center, nothing hinted at its sinister purpose. A single strong, bright light-source was focused on that chair, blinding its unlucky occupant. Outride couldn't see the interrogator's face but he knew all too well that TiltShift could see him.

"It is such a lovely evening for a little chat among friends," the raspy, mocking voice came from a dark corner. TiltShift stood a few steps away from his strapped-down prisoner, only his optics visible, glowing in two oddly different colors from the shadows.

The former tactician shifted nervously in the interrogation chair. 'Let's get it over with,' he thought trying to keep cool. After all there were not many things that would cause more pain than what he had already experienced just two orns ago.

The massive construction frame sedately stalked closer and continued: "Ah but how can we start like this. You are only half ready. Allow me to correct that."

Tiltshift held a little nondescript device directly to Outride's helm.

Instinctively bracing himself for the pain, the spy was surprised when it didn't come. Instead his limited field of vision suddenly went completely dark.

It caught him off-guard. Whatever TiltShift had done, it left him blind, confused and panicked. Not only he couldn't tell whether the interrogator was still in front of him or not, he also didn't know, if the blindness was permanent. His optic seemed untouched, yet it didn't work.

"What is this?" he questioned, his voice less than confidant.

"Oh? Could you be worried already? You disappoint me Outride." No steps of the interrogator's heavy frame were to be heard even though Outride was straining his audials to compensate for not being able to see, yet the other mech was suddenly speaking from the opposite side of the chair.

"Remember that cute, little seeker femme I had a talk with a few decaorns ago? What do you think she would say, if she could see you right now?"

He did remember NorthStar, of course. He did remember her crimson, shimmering visor and her black, perky wings. He even remembered the taste of her lip-plates. But it all seemed like something from a distant past. NorthStar, he was sure, hadn't told TiltShift much back then – she simply couldn't have because according to her own words, she had a rather nasty version of Decepticon loyalty coding implanted in her processor. He, however could talk but it would be pathetic, if this damn slagger got more from him than from the femme.

"I don't know, maybe ask her?" Outride tried to mock, suddenly sounding bolder than he really was. "Oh right, I forgot. You Autobots didn't manage to catch her after she escaped from the prison."

"Well, never mind, I'm sure it will be quite similar to what any femme or mech would say anyway, seeing you now. It is kind of a pity – I really enjoy ruining handsome faceplates. Call it envy. I was never pretty enough for femmes to look at me twice, even before I lost an optic. And then you go and do my job for me. Made my day when I heard about it."

At first Outride didn't get what the other mech was going on about. But slowly the memories from two orns ago, the orn he had gotten captured, were coming back to him. He had fought both Counter Balance and Detalus, he had been about to use his acid gun when... That pain... The acid... His face had felt like burning in the smelter. But the Autobots had repaired him, hadn't they? He hadn't seen or touched his face-plate since the accident, though. Did the scar look that bad? He instinctively wanted to reach with his right servo to examine the wound, but his servos were cuffed again and all that left him with, was using his imagination.

"I really love having seekers in that chair here. They all play so tough but scratch their wings a bit and they start screaming." The voice was now coming from the other side again. No movement was felt, no steps indicated a change of position. That was right before a sharp pain raced through Outride's left audial. It felt like a white-hot blade was cutting through his processor.

His frame shook violently and Outride cried out. The pain went away as quickly as it came but his audio-receptor still buzzed with statics. He turned the sensitivity level to the minimum, just in case the fragger wanted to do whatever that had been again. He didn't even ask questions yet, it was clearly all just for fun. Outride was not laughing. If it went like that, he would end up not only blind but deaf. The thought was terrifying. How could they do that to him?

"What do you want from me?" He mumbled through the buzzing he heard in his helm.

"Let's talk a bit more about seekers. Tell me a bit about her. When did you meet her for the first time?"

"NorthStar?" He asked quite stupidly, not getting why it was all about her again. Didn't the Autobots want to know HIS motives and HIS methods? That NorthStar femme was no-one important after all. "She was a prisoner in the base. I went to the prison-wing the orn she got captured."

This time it was his right pede that exploded in pain as armor and protoform warped from the steel bolt that was shot into it.

"And I am supposed to believe that you just casually decided to risk your cover to assist an unimportant femme you never ever met before?" TiltShift hissed.

Outride could feel the hot string of energon tracing down his pede, he wanted to move it away but it wasn't possible, it only caused more pain and he moaned through gritted dentas. Noticing just now that some of his dentas were apparently missing or damaged.

What TiltShift had just said actually sounded reasonable. It made Outride giggle nervously. Nobot would believe him, he knew it. The interrogation could go on like that forever since the truth wasn't good enough – the truth was that he had simply been too confident and stupid.

"It was... a mistake."

"Now that I want to hear more about." And Outride could imagine the smug grin on Tiltshift's faceplate. The interrogator was removing some armor from his knee joint on that same leg now. And one hadn't to be a medic to know there were lots of sensitive cables connecting below there.

The helpless, strapped down mech trembled in fear. "Don't...," he started, wishing for TiltShift's hands to stay away from him but the words didn't want to come out of his vocalizer.

"By all means, continue. Don't wait for me to..." Pain assaulted Outride as the first of the cables was ripped out, the ends shredding from the force used "… encourage you."

Screaming and flailing on a chair, Outride wished he was immobilized better than that. Every movement hurt the already injured pede but he couldn't control his frame's reactions. The knee-joint cables were just too sensitive and that damn fragger knew that all too well.

"I just went checking on new prisoners, I always did that," he began talking as fast as he could as not to give TiltShift reason to rip anything off again. "I saw her there for the first time, I swear. She was the only seeker femme in there, so I got interested. I talked to her, she was teasing me. I didn't plan this, it was all her fault. I didn't know they would attack the base later!"

"All her fault, I see." And this time the sneer the interrogator showed was even more obvious. "I can really imagine it, you know? A pretty femme suddenly paying attention to you – must be so boring here in this base doing nothing but sitting on your servos and not getting any acknowledgment for all the intel you gather. How often did you even report to your contact in town? Once a decaorn? Once a groon?"

Outride could feel a claw touching the next cable almost playfully.

"Once in two decaorns," he admitted shakily. He wasn't sure anymore, if that was or wasn't an important information that could help the Autoscums with anything. Admitting his weakness for the seeker femme left him much more bitter than this revelation. "Sometimes more often, if there was something interesting to report."

"Interesting? Like that artifact transport that was then so conveniently ambushed, I guess. What was the boring stuff?"

Outride shook his helm with a sorrowful expression. He shouldn't tell him. The Decepticons had all that knowledge and thanks to that the upper-hand, he couldn't let all his hard work go to waste like that.

"Oh? You don't want to talk about it? Then let me switch the topic for a moment. Remember when I said I like having seekers in this chair? For some reason they are completely different from grounders. They can't even imagine living without flying. Losing the sky is a weird fear, isn't it? Grounders don't share that. In the contrary, what grounders instinctively fear the most… is this:"

For a moment Outride didn't understand what was happening at all. TiltShift had pierced his midsection with something, this time not too deep, just beneath his armor. Compared to the agony from before, the pain was negligible. It felt more like some electric impulse shooting through his frame. And then an error report window popped up inside his helm, dutifully reporting that his equilibrium chip was failing.

Outride realized that he was falling – and falling – and falling…

His spark froze while his armor compressed as if preparing for a crash-landing, which wasn't coming. Then panic kicked in, leaving him unable to utter a single word or even a cry. He didn't know where the ground was anymore, he was falling and spinning around in complete darkness.

Soon enough his tank reacted to the sensation of the free-fall and Outride started feeling sick. Even though he hadn't refueled for almost three orns now the queasiness got worse and worse until it reached a peak. Whatever little amount of unprocessed energon he still had inside him, it came back up his intake and he threw it up.

The motion sickness didn't end there though, ill and humiliated he felt his frame overheating and on top of that, a certain unpleasant memory replayed in his cpu like a horror movie. He had experienced a fall just like that, back in the city of Simfur, when the Decepticon armada had bombed the skyscraper he had been in. There had been screams and roars of jet engines and rubble had been raining down on him, burying him alive.

The sensation was feeling like it lasted for joors, even though his internal chronometer assured him, it had only been three breems until his equilibrium chip booted back up. It took a while longer until he didn't feel as nauseous anymore though. And while he was still venting heavily to cool his racing engine back down, TiltShift asked pleasantly: "So again: What did you regularly report to the Decepticons?"

Outride sensed the panic crawling back into him, he knew that TiltShift would sent him 'falling' again. It made him question the point of even resisting to answer. Who cared if he was brave? His commander wouldn't even hear of it. And why should he be loyal to the Cons anyway? They had done nothing to make his life better. Outride wanted to be on the winning side but at this moment it was the Autobots who had him in his clutches.

"I'll tell," he yelped, "just not to you. I want to talk to the master tactician. I will collaborate."

"A pity, you almost had the right answer there." Another piece of plating was ripped down, this time in his side and the construction mech's claws dug into Outride's unprotected protoform. Tiltshift grabbed something and yanked hard. Outride couldn't even try to hold back his gasp of pain anymore.

Then a new error message told him that his internal chronometer had just gone missing.

"I hope you are ready for another flight-lesson? Ah who cares!" Accompanied by those words Outride felt the all too familiar stab and the electrical current running through his midsection.

It was all happening again – the panic attack, the fall, the sickness and the sick tank – just this time it seemed to go on and on forever. Without the internal chronometer the passage of time ceased to exist for Outride in his world of fear. 'Why?' He asked himself every time he could form a clear thought. 'Why did he do that? I agreed to tell them what they wanted to hear.'

Of course the equilibrium chip rebooted eventually. And as it did, Outride could smell the familiar scent of highgrade. Even though his tank was absolutely empty by now, the mere thought of energon made it convulse violently in rejection of potential fuel. He could hear how an empty cube was set down on a table.

"Back already?" Tiltshift asked. "You didn't have to hurry like that, we have all the time in the world. Now tell ME what you regularly reported to the Decepticons."

If not for the cuffs, Outiride would probably have fallen out of the chair. He was too weak and ill and tired, to even think of any lies.

"Names," he whispered, his helm down and a string of unprocessed energon dangling from his lipplates. "Just names and numbers and com-lines frequencies. Patrol schedules, state of supply."

"Very well then. But before we get to the next question we need to do something about your energy levels. It won't do after all if you simply drop into stasis."

Outride suddenly felt TiltShift grabbing his chin and forcing his mouth open. A metallic cylinder was stuck between his dentas – probably a funnel. Weakly he tried to spit it out but the interrogator held his chin in a vise like grip.

The taste of the cheapest sort of highgrade spread though his mouth and his tanks revolted again as the burning liquid rushed down his intake. He coughed but more and more was poured down into that funnel until his tanks were a quarter full – even TiltShift apparently wouldn't waste more than necessary just for torture.

"So then with that taken care of…" the funnel was roughly removed. "Choose your answers very carefully, if you want to keep that down."

oOo

TiltShift took a sip of his own cheap highgrade. That stuff was quite nasty to be honest, or maybe it was just the unpleasant smell of processed and half-processed energon spilled all around the interrogation room that ruined the taste for him. TiltShift didn't care, he liked his job and not only was he good at it, he also felt satisfied after a fulfilling session like this one. It was almost evening and he had just finished with his 'patient'.

He had seen many Cons in here, on that chair – some of them raging, some of them begging but in a way, they were all just the same and he had treated them as the trash that they really were. This one here had told him as much as he knew, naively believing that it would make the session end sooner. TiltShift did not play that way. All the Con-scums deserved to suffer. Even if they talked, even if they were telling the truth – he was there to teach them something and that something was PAIN.

But now the miserable, almost offline wreck in that chair had to be repaired unfortunately as his selfrepair had stopped functioning at some point a few joors back. It was not very likely that another interrogation would be allowed, not with results like these. That little traitor had basically been talking TiltShift's audials off and pleaded that he didn't know more afterwards – when he wasn't too busy screaming of course.

Still it felt unsatisfying to allow for Outride to simply be dragged off. TiltShift hesitated for a moment to call for the guard waiting outside. He readied another tool and leaned over the whimpering mass of metal strapped to the chair. It was a matter of astroseconds to turn the one undamaged optic back on.

Satisfied, he commed for the guardmech to pick the prisoner up.

Just before the door closed, he ordered: "Drag the Con by a mirror, Tapwire!"

He smiled to himself as the door shut behind the mechs. Then he removed the small speakers he had magnetized to the walls in the shadows. It was always fun to see mecha straining their audials, trying to follow his 'movements' as he talked to them through the inbuilt mic.

Registering a small movement in the darkness, he reached out and squished a cogroach as it tried to skitter away from him.

'Disgusting!' He thought, 'this base was really going down the drain – vermin like that had to be dealt with permanently.'

oOo

Tapwire was a simple bot who usually followed his orders, maybe not when he was up to slacking off or go for an unauthorized cygar-break, but aside from that, he just did what he was told to, without questioning it too much. And that was exactly why he and another guard were dragging the barley functioning prisoner not straight to the medbay but to the prison washrack.

The washrack was deserted this time of the orn. It was only rarely used by anyone but the medics working a shift in the prison bay or once a decaorn to clean up the prisoners.

Halting in front of one of the big wall mirrors the other guard holding Outride's arm asked: "Are you sure TiltShift meant we should take him here?"

"That is the only place with a mirror in this block." Tapwire shrugged.

"But what are we supposed to do now? Just stand here? Didn't he mean we should clean him up?"

"He just said 'mirror' not 'shower-stall'. But if this is all, I guess we can drag him back to the…" Tapwire was about to suggest to finally take the prisoner to the medbay, when he was interrupted by a strange, staticky keening, as if a vocalizer was going to break.

oOo

Outride stared at a mirror, yet couldn't recognize the monstrosity reflected in the glassy surface. It had his bright-green color scheme but it was staring back with only one optic. In the place of the other one, there was an empty hole. Half of the soft, living-metal of the face-plate was missing completely, the inner cables and joints could be spotted where the cheek-plate should be. Some dentas on the left side were broken and those that were still there were unnatural exposed and corroded. No lip-plates, no optic-ridge, just the sad remains of a once handsome face were visible in the mirror.

The sheer sight horrified him but what was so much worse, was the realization that this was his own face-plate. It looked as if it belonged to something that had already been offlined for decades. Outride couldn't stop himself and began to wail.

oOo

The two guards exchanged a confused look over the frame of their prisoner, who had gone completely limp in their hold, as if even the last will to live had just left him.

If it wasn't for his best friend Diode still being in medical stasis in the medbay and awaiting another operation before the medics could truly say he was stable, Tapwire might have felt some pity for Outride.

"Guess nobot cared to tell him what happened to his faceplate?" He finally muttered.

"Medbay now?" The other guard asked, feeling somewhat awkward standing there and watching the former officer's complete breakdown.

"Medbay," Tapwire affirmed. They were done here.

oOo

The sound of slow pedesteps and a screech of something metallic being dragged along the floor filled the prison corridors and caught the attention of its lone inmate.

Tarpit had already spent almost three orns in the cell, waiting for the unavoidable interrogation and preparing his version of the events. He knew that the Autobots must have arrested Acrid, else they wouldn't have come to apprehend him. What he didn't know was how much the damn snitch had already told them. So far Tarpit hadn't seen the other, not even once. It looked like they didn't keep him in the prison-block for some reason. Did that mean Acrid had willingly collaborated?

The black-framed mech stopped pondering on that when he heard the noises coming from the west side of the prison-block. Interested in the potentially new development, he stood up to walk a bit closer to the bars. Then, leaning to the wall of his narrow cell, he maximized the sensitivity of his audio sensors. The pedesteps were getting closer, soon he'd be able to see who was coming this way. Could that be guards sent to take him to the interrogation? Or only a daily patrol on their night-shift?

To Tarpit's surprise, it was neither of that. He saw the two Autobots dragging, almost carrying, what looked like an offlined mecha. And that mecha was nobot else but Acrid himself. With both legs pierced by long, metal nails and multiple armor parts taken off or broken the bright-green mech couldn't walk or stand but that wasn't all – half of his face-plate was missing. Tarpit held his vents, staring at the amount of damage that had been done to his fellow Decepticon. Acrid wasn't offline though, he wasn't even in stasis, his frame was trembling slightly and Tarpit could hear him moan.

Taking a step back, the black mech swallowed hard, trying to calm his hammering fuelpump.

The two guards passed by, leaving a trail of processed energon behind them. If that was how the Autobots interrogated their prisoners, Tarpit needed to reconsider his own loyalty.

oOo

Blackjack held his final report as he entered the Spec Ops commander's temporary office, where the evidence for the upcoming trial against Outride and Tarpit was gathered and sorted.

Counter Balance was sitting behind the office desk, taking notes while intently watching a monitor with a deep frown on his faceplate but no sound was to be heard.

"Everything alright, boss?" Blackjack inquired as he put his report on the table and waited for an invitation to sit.

"He may get results, but I can't say that I agree with TiltShift's methods," Counter replied absentmindedly before he turned the monitor off and paid attention to his agent. Apparently he had been listening in over a direct audio channel to his comm, to avoid the video footage being heard outside his office.

"I'm surprised that TiltShift agreed to a camera in his interrogation room. Torture is illegal after all."

Counter allowed himself to smirk.

"He didn't know about it."

"Another cogroach?" Blackjack smirked too by now.

"Those things are surprisingly useful to gather court evidence," Counter affirmed. Then he abruptly became serious again. "So what do you have for me?"

"Well, first the good news. The witness known as Piffpaff was collected without a hitch, we just had to pay her for the time she is not able to 'work' and she is staying in a guest room right now."

"Let's hope that femme will keep cooperating," Counter frowned again.

Blackjack allowed himself a dry chuckle. "For money she'll sell out her grandcreators. No loyalties to anyone."

"So what's the bad news?" Counter finally asked

"We searched Tarpit's hideout. Aside from some weapons, more hydrafloric acid and some drugs, we found a cage for a small mechanimal as well as thin metallic foils with coded messages. As we already assumed he must have trained that petrorat he had with him to carry notes over to the next Decepticon outpost. And since that critter escaped, the Cons by now know we got Tarpit."

"Damn it to the Pit!" Counter gritted his dentas. "I had hoped we could feed them some false information once we knew how he contacted them."

"The foils have been given to the decoders, but so far they haven't cracked the cipher." Blackjack shrugged. "What do you think the Cons will do now, sir?"

"To be honest, I'm not expecting much of a rescue attempt unless either of our two prisoners is far more important than we know. The Decepticons might come for an attack nevertheless, to 'remind us of our place'. Either way, I have to inform the general, we need to be prepared."

* * *

And don't forget to check out the fanart made for this chapters by my friend: /021n0oen3acs


	12. The morning after

Early morning, after the usual drill and refueling, all Autobot officers of the Macron Gamma were called for a meeting in the tactics main hall. The huge, round table with the holographic map of the region stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by many chairs for the department-heads.

General Quasar, with his armor as shiny as ever, took a seat in front of the door, to his right servo the master tactician was seated. Next to Detalus was Counter Balance's chair, as expected for a high-ranked officer, then followed by the chief of communications, the chief of the science team and the new chief of security, since Low-Key was still recovering and to be demoted. The chief medic Thermo was sitting to Quasar's left, as were several of the lower ranked officers. All the mechas were serious and looked concerned, the latest events had lowered the morale on base severely.

"Greetings everyone." Quasar began the meeting as soon as everyone was seated. "Let us get straight to the first agenda. The information that their spies got caught should have reached the Decepticons by now. While a rescue attempt or retaliation strike both are unlikely, since Decepticons are known to abandon their own when in captivity, it is still possible that they will try an attack before we can change our defense setup and the intel they have received becomes obsolete. So chief tactician Detalus has the word, concerning our new defense strategy."

Detalus rose from his chair and zoomed in on the holographic display of the base and the surrounding area, quickly explaining the roles every department would play in case of an attack. Satisfied that there were few questions and only ones that were easily answered he sat down again and returned the word to Quasar.

That was where the meeting came to a halting point. There was one more thing to discuss but so far the general didn't seem to want to get started on that topic.

"I understand that the traitor's trial will have to wait under the given circumstances?' The chief of security finally asked the one question that most of the officers were probably thinking about. "If I may ask, what is the approximate date?"

The general exvented. What he now had to say wouldn't go over well with anymech in this room.

"Unfortunately there may not be any trial." Trying to calm the sudden confused murmur at the table, Quasar put a datapad in front of the new security mech. "While the evidence against former officer Outride is not leaving any doubt about his guilt, there has been a new development I was informed of by highcommand just four joors ago. During a skirmish near Centari Tetrax three Autobot officers were taken captive by the Decepticon forces, their location is currently unknown. Highcommand wants to attempt a prisoner exchange."

oOo

Whispers and angry, hushed comments filled the room, the atmosphere growing more tense with every sparkbeat.

"What about the soldiers' morale? The trial should have set a good example, without it, the troops will start talking that there is no justice and that we are pushovers," the chief of the artillery argued with a frown.

"He's responsible for too many deaths to just let him go," somebot else reminded.

Counter could agree to all those voices, he didn't like this new development either – especially since Outride's plots had affected his safety not once but at least three times by now. He didn't work on this case for so long, just to see the traitor getting away with his crimes.

"And here he could indirectly help rescuing a few lives for a change," Quasar threw in. "I like the idea even less than you. However, his crimes will neither be absolved nor forgotten, we'd just have to wait for the next chance to catch him. Besides the decision is no longer in our servos."

Almost all of the officers expressed their disappointment one way or another.

"When will the exchange take place?" Somebot inquired.

"We still have to contact the Decepticons to begin the negotiations. They probably want their agents back in pristine condition, if they agree to the exchange."

"The prisoners are still recovering after the session with interrogator TiltShift," the chief medic explained with a clear sign of annoyance – it was easy to figure what he thought of the said interrogator and his methods. "My team can get them into decent shape within two more orns."

"Should my team contact the Decepticons then?" The chief of communication asked.

"Yes. Here is a datapad with the details of the captured spies' identities and Autobot officers' in question to initialize the contact. The negotiations themselves will be taken over by myself and chief tactician Detalus as my advisor. We will know more after that. So be ready to be called into another meeting. Until then I expect you all to keep this from the troops and prepare for a possible strike by the Decepticons."

Finally Counter Balance spoke up: "Once they are at least patched up, I suggest transferring both of the prisoners back into the cellblock. The troops shouldn't have an opportunity to get in contact with them. In case rumors about the prisoner exchange spread, mechas might try going for revenge. And we want to avoid a repeat of the 'Low-Key incident'."

That statement seemed to enrage especially the new chief of security.

"So we intend to not only let them go, we also waste our supplies on them and set up more guards to protect them? That is..."

"Reasonable," the master tactician cut in all of a sudden. "I suggest also picking the guards from those who didn't have much connection to the former officer Outride in the past. If we start to negotiate the exchange and meanwhile something happens to our prisoners, we lose all good cards in our servos."

"Hearing that from you…" Thermo shook his helm at the old tactician. "You more than anyone else should know just how dangerous that traitor is. And you should be the one demanding him being put on trial the most."

The Old Turbo-fox narrowed his green optics.

"I think you misunderstood my point. All I'm saying is that our personal grudges shouldn't affect our judgment. We all want to see the traitor being brought to justice but we can't always get what we want. Our fellow Autobot's lives are at risk and we should do what it takes to secure their return."

"And hope to settle the score another time." Counter agreed.

"If this is all…" Quasar looked around and got affirmative nods. "…then this meeting is closed."

The officers rushed out to prepare the base defenses and the negotiations, none of them looking forward to their parts in it.

When almost all of the mecha had left the tactics main hall, Counter Balance turned to Detalus and Quasar: "There is one more thing that I'd like to share with you," he stated calmly. "It's about the interrogation."

They waited until the room was empty. What Counter had to say might be considered a delicate topic after all.

"I guess you heard rumors about TiltShift's methods?" Quasar inquired, leaning back in his chair.

"To be honest the medics have protested having to patch up the mecha TiltShift interrogated several times already but since the monitoring in the interrogation room always goes conveniently offline when TiltShift is on base, we couldn't really do much about it." Detalus explained. "We sent a complaint and a request to investigate him to Iacon before, but the files and forms have disappeared somewhere along the lines and we were not so subtly discouraged to send another one. TiltShift has friends in some high positions."

"General Pulsar from the Macron Delta base recommended this mech to us and at the state of the war 'one is not to be supposed to get picky about the soldiers'," Quasar quoted with a not-so-pleased expression on his faceplate. Counter knew all too well that the general was talking about his own creator which only complicated the dilemma.

"I've heard of him, yes, and of the constant problem with the missing footage from his interrogations. That is why I installed an, let's say, additional recording device in the interrogation room two orns ago – just in case of yet another technical difficulty messing with the normal cameras. The results are quite interesting."

"How did you even do that?" Detalus asked puzzled "When we tried something along the lines we only had one more broken camera as the result."

Quasar exvented: "Do I have to ask why you didn't inform me, Counter?"

The spec ops Mech only shrugged. "Same reason as always, Sir – the less mechas know about something, the easier it is too keep it a secret. I guess it's just the charm of my line of work. In any case, I also read TiltShift's report and I must inform you that not everything from the interrogation made it into the files. And we're not only talking the methods right now."

With that Counter offered a small data-stick to the general and his advisor.

Quasar and Detalus shared an uncomfortable glance before the general accepted the datastick and copied the content to a free pad for watching.

Just a few breems of seeing Outride's mangled frame being wrecked in agony and primal fear was enough for Quasar to hastily end the replay. Detalus seemed only slightly less shaken.

"It goes on for eight joors," Counter Balance informed them. "And the last few questions aren't mentioned in the final report at all. Questions like: 'When and where the Con's air forces will strike next?' or 'Where is Megatron right now?' – things that Outride couldn't possibly know about."

Obviously both officers hadn't expected that.

Detalus looked over the notes Counter had supplied: "Use of liquid nitrogen to break the prisoner's abdominal plating, a drill to dismantle both hip-joints, one servo removed with a bolt-cutter and TiltShift applied corrosive zinc chloride to all open wounds – during my entire time in the army I've never before encountered such a blatant violation of the Autobot-code. The Prime will be furious once he hears about this. I doubt even general Pulsar has enough influence to get TiltShift out of that one."

Counter nodded to that. "I will make sure this recording reaches the prosecutor's office even before I go back to Iacon. There is one more part I wanted to show to you though." He clicked on the video player and skipped to the end of first joor of the interrogation. "Here it is, please listen to the audio."

The three of them leaned toward the datapad since the sound wasn't at full volume. Counter didn't want to risk somebot overhearing the energon-curdling screams recorded on the footage.

: I'll tell, : Outride yelped from the other side of the screen, : just not to you. I want to talk to the master tactician. I will collaborate. :

"As you can see, the prisoner was willing to share some information and yet the interrogation wasn't interrupted and the master tactician wasn't informed of this. What's more, that fact was fully ignored in TiltShift's report." He paused the video and took a deep vent, waiting. "I thought you might want to know about it, Detalus."

"I appreciate that," the old mech said flatly, "but I don't think it matters any more now. If you excuse me, I got some negotiations to prepare for."

Detalus didn't show any outward emotion and who knew what he was truly thinking. General Quasar looked a bit worried but he nodded his helm dismissing the chief of tactics.

"I think that's all, thank you for your report Counter."

The spec ops mech saluted and also left the room. He was glad that this part was done with – no matter how successful TiltShift might be at his job, bots like him shall never be allowed among the decent Autobots.

oOo

Outride woke to the pleasant dull pain of fresh repair, though he could really have done without the murderous helmache that made him almost want to stab his one remaining optic with a pointy object. Almost, because even if the light in the... Where was he? Ah, yes, he was back in the prison medbay. So even if the light was burning like a supernova, it was still better than that helpless blindness he had been kept in while that sadistic fragger had ripped his frame apart.

"Good morning sunshine," someone greeted him sarcastically. "So, how are you?"

He knew that voice and the mecha to whom it belonged to. He would have recognized it even in the bottom of the Pit! Counter Balance – this rusty Autoscum had ruined his life, his spy career, his chances for the Decepticons' appreciation and finally his face-plate! If Outride wasn't tied down, he'd offline the mech right here, right away.

"You..."

Chief medic Thermo interrupted them before Outride could complete the sentence. He cast Counter a stern glare: "No undoing my hard work!"

The other mech just snorted: "What do you take me for?"

The spy watched the old medic walking out which left the two of them the only bots in the room.

What was Counter doing here anyway? Having a guard shift? Impossible for a mech of his rank. And if he came here seeking some revenge, he had missed his chance, TiltShift already had done that for him.

"It is truly sparkwarming to know you care about my wellbeing," he threw one of his old snide remarks back at the spec ops mech, since coming up with something more creative was hard with that pesky helmache. "So? Are you gonna gloat, or what?"

"Hardly." The other mech glanced nonchalantly at a datapad he had apparently been reading while he had been…waiting? …for Outride to wake up? "I'm here to talk business."

"Oh? Since when do you Autobots do businesses with us Decepticons?"

"You'd be surprised. Though usually it is your lord Megatron offering us our lives, if we hand over the matrix of leadership, the planet, the colonies and ourselves in stasis cuffs."

"...funny," the Con mumbled but didn't feel too amused. He tried to change his position on the table but with his legs and arms cuffed it wasn't really possible. He was glad that at least his servo had been attached back to his frame. One orn TiltShift would pay for what he had done. "But jokes aside. What do you want from me?"

"Fine. Let us cut right to the main topic: Remember the orn when I came to this base to pick up the artifact? I assume it is not too far fetched to say that you were the one responsible for the squad of Decepticons waiting for me on my way home?"

Outride stayed quiet for a moment, his damaged faceplate twitching as an unpleasant thought crossed his cpu.

"They sent you for another interrogation?" He finally hissed. "You think you could do better than him?"

The other mech snorted again: "I won't even try. You can answer my questions or not. It is up to you."

Then Counter fell silent leaving Outride time to let that sink in. It confused the spy. It made no sense at all. Shouldn't Counter Balance hate him as much as Outride hated him back? Why was the guy so calm, what kind of logic was that?

"What if..." he lowered his voice, not being sure whether he should continue. "What if I'll answer? Will you let me go?"

The spec ops mech cast him a look. His voice was dripping with sarcasm when he answered: "Oh sure! And I'll give you the matrix of leadership, the rule over Cybertron and its colonies and while I'm at it, I'll talk everyone into wearing stasis cuffs and pay Megatron a visit!"

"Go frag yourself."

Angry and bitter, the spy turned his helm away to avoid Counter's gaze. As stupid as that was, he desperately needed something to hold on to, some light at the end of the tunnel in his hopeless situation. But the sad truth was, none of the Autobots, and especially not Counter Balance, were willing to give him anything in return while they could take the information by force. This whole conversation seemed to be but a mockery to him. What had he done to deserve such fate?

oOo

This had not gone as well as planned. Counter had let his anger slip and mocked the captured spy. It didn't look like Outride, enraged as he was now, would willingly talk. He glanced at the datapad – no in this situation leaving the hostile agent time to think was his only option. What would Meister say now? He frantically scrolled further down to the next interrogation scene. Oh, right!

"Fine. If you think you have something to tell, worth my time, get Thermo or one of the prison guards to contact me. Think about your trial in the meantime."

And with that he stood and walked away. He actually made it out of the door without the spy calling him back. Was this method not working either? The mention of the trial should have made Outride nervous, as there was no way he could already know about the negotiations for the prisoner exchange. But Counter couldn't loiter in front of the prison medbay, better he returned to his office to get some more work done for now and hope that Outride felt the urge to make some sort of deal before the negotiations resolved.

He didn't even manage to leave the prison-block when somebot called him. It was Blackjack, the mech had apparently been loitering in front of the medbay for some reason.

"What are you doing here?" Counter raised an optical ridge. "Spying on your own commanding officer?"

"Not really," the black mech shrugged. "And I could ask you the same. What are you doing here, boss? Making deals with the enemy behind everybot's back?"

"You really think I would do this, if not under order from Alpha Trion? I'd prefer to investigate the old fashioned way but..."

"Okay, okay..." the other interrupted with a defensive gesture. "I don't need to know about the details, I just wanted to warn you: collaborating with him won't work. You're wasting your time here."

"How do you know he won't be willing to sell the information? The only problem is that 'selling' things is what he is good at, while I am..."

"That's not what I mean. The mech has been tortured, do you think he makes rational decisions right now? He will agree to nothing because he hates us all."

At this point Counter knew, Blackjack was talking from experience. He had heard the story of the mech's encounter with the Decepticon interrogator-wannabee called Vortex. He was aware that the hatred for this Con had turned the former engineer Upgrade into agent Blackjack. But Outride was a different case all along.

"He's nothing like you, soldier," Counter assured him calmly. "Let's get back upstairs. We'll wait and see."

oOo

It hadn't taken all that long until Outride had overstayed his welcome in the medbay. Now he was sitting on the floor of a cell trying his best not to rub his itchy, half melted face. Ever since he had seen what was left of his once perfectly good-looking features he couldn't stop thinking about it. Not to mentioned that the edges of the wound still hurt, but then again that was like the rest of his newly patched-up frame.

The monotony of the prison was interrupted when the guards entered. Outride tensed up, his fuelpump racing. Were they here to drag him back into the interrogation room for another 'session' with TiltShift because he hadn't answered Counter's questions?

But the two guards, Outride had never seen them before, simply shoved another cuffed-up prisoner into the cell opposite the corridor.

Tarpit, frame covered in fresh welds similar to his own, let out a nasty curse right as the cell door locked behind him.

Outride instantly understood why TiltShift hadn't bothered to ask about his contact in town. They had Tarpit all along, which meant that there was nobot who knew about their capture or would try to help them from the outside. How did the Autoscums even discover the other Con?

"What did you tell them?" Tarpit asked out of the blue.

Outride didn't want to talk about it, in fact he didn't want to talk at all – the sound of his glitching, down-regulated vocalizer creeped him out, also he didn't have to explain himself to Tarpit.

"That interrogator wouldn't have ruined your audials or your vocalizer, so don't play as if you haven't heard me!" Tarpit, now somewhat enraged, demanded. Outride knew the mech hated being ignored.

"Calm down before the guards hear us," the bright-green mech hissed, now also annoyed. "I didn't sell you out, if that's what you mean. So don't act like you're better than me 'cause you have no idea..." His voice suddenly went all static as the memory of TiltShift's treatment flashed back through his processor.

"Oh? No idea? You think they brought me here for a buffing and full detailing?" Tarpit grit out between his remaining dentas – the Autobot interrogator must have pulled out a few, and punched in some more. "And no selling me out? Are you trying to tell me that those Autobots all of a sudden found out about me on their own? If you think I believe you, you must be incredibly stupid, and should you actually be telling the truth then you must be even dumber because then you fragging screwed this up unintentionally!"

"Shut up!" Tarpit's words burned his ego like the hydrafloric acid. "It's not my fault! It was that stupid glitch – that so called friend of yours! Who else?"

He had made some mistakes, true, helping NorthStar had been the first of them and then offlining the Bots from the convoy just to talk with the femme. If he had known it would end like that... But it didn't explain how Tarpit got caught. The whole failure was definitely not Outride's fault.

"Stop whining! You are the one who got cocky and messed up an easy job." Tarpit hissed back. "All that work just for you to ruin a perfect deep-cover operation – and then you can't even clean up your own messes behind you!"

"I told you to shut up!" Outride yelled and rose to his pedes. "You think I didn't try to offline that mech? I did! Not once but twice! And look how well that ended!" Storming as close to the electric bars as possible, the former officer presented his acid-burned faceplate. "And meanwhile you just sat on your aft and waited for the Autoscums to get you. Did you even fight back? Or did you follow their orders? How many of them did you offline? Zero?"

"So then you managed to kill off half the base personnel with all that acid I provided? With all the time, opportunity and the element of surprise at servo that you had, opposite to me who was apprehended in an ambush? How many key personnel did you offline? 100? 10? At least the base commander? Your superior? Because you looser didn't even manage to get your initial target!"

Outride felt a mix of shame and anger boiling up inside his fuel lines. He didn't offline anyone important. Not even Low-Key who somehow had survived his attempt to poison her. How was it possible that all of them were so lucky?

"I...," he stuttered not knowing what to answer.

"Useless!" Tarpit hissed again and this time Outride had enough.

He grabbed the energy-bars with his cuffed servos, the blue sparks shot from them as the electric current ran through his frame.

"I'm gonnaaa..."

He didn't finish since the rest of the line got missing in between the incoherent sounds of getting electrocuted.

A few moments later Outride let the bars go and fell to the floor, still trembling lightly.

Over in his cell, laying on that uncomfy bunk berth, Tarpit broke out in gloating laughter exposing his purple glossa.

"Be quiet!" The angry voice of a prison guard ordered.

The laughter died down and the two prisoners remained in silence.

After a few breems Outride decided to talk to the other Decapticon again.

"Listen Tarpit, there is only one thing that we can do right now..."

"Oh? Then enlighten me."

"We did what we were ordered to do and we have failed. We're at the Autobots' mercy, no one is gonna help us. And we both told them too much already. They're gonna charge us for espionage and will most likely sentence us for execution. Unless..."

"Unless? Get on with it."

"Unless we help them to lead our troops into some trap by reporting false informations. We have to collaborate with them," Outride finished almost certain that Tarpit would hate that suggestion. "And before you decline, just think, what our loyalty would be good for anyway."

oOo

Tarpit knew that Acrid had no clue that one of his petrorats had escaped to warn the Decepticons of their capture. Actually Acrid didn't even know about the messenger-rats. Still, did the mech really believe the Autobots would even attempt such a processor-broken scheme? Or that they would consider being more gracious during a fragging trial? True, the Autobots saw Tarpit as just another low-ranked Con to be dealt with, but a deep cover spy like 'Outride'? He was less than trash in their optics.

With some effort he rolled over on the bunk so that his back was turned to the corridor between their cells and to Acrid respectively.

"Count me out," he muttered and decided to catch up on some recharge, so his autorepair could work undisturbed. Who knew, if or when they were dragged back into that interrogation room.


	13. The price of a mech

The sun was setting behind the window of the master tactician's private office. The old cycle-former stared at the datapad, scrolling down and reading the information about the five mecha involved in the next orn's negotiations once more. Even though he didn't like making bargains with the Cons, the three captured Autobots needed rescue.

Absentmindedly Detalus scrolled to the next page and his gaze met the small picture of his former assistant – the Decepticon spy. A pair of big, bright-blue optics looked at him from that photo, it was hard to believe that a nice mech like Outride turned out to be a Con, a murderer and a traitor. And all this time Detalus hadn't figured it out.

He had taught this mechling everything he knew. He had hoped that one orn Outride would take his place as the Autobots' main tactician. The mech had had talent and had always worked hard. Detalus had liked him and he... He had sparklessly sold them all to the Cons. Outride's betrayal had hurt the master tactician like no other bot. And yet, yesterorn when he had seen the video from Outride's interrogation, the hatred for the traitorous mech had seemed to fade away a bit. The Old Fox didn't like to admit it, but it was spark-breaking to watch his former student on that torture chair, writhing in pain, screaming and, what was even worse, begging to see Detalus.

He still didn't understand which sort of person Outride was. How much of 'Outride' had been real? How much was the Decepticon 'Acrid'? There was only one thing he could do. Talk with the mech again. This may be his last chance to do so before the prisoner exchange.

Slowly, he rose from his chair, every strut in his chassis protesting. Since this incident he felt like he had aged by a few millennia.

oOo

Soon enough Detalus was sitting in the tiny visitors' room, waiting for the guards to bring in the prisoner. It didn't take long for him to hear the pedesteps and orders like: 'Move it, Con!'.

When the door opened, he caught a glimpse of surprise in Outride's right optic, and since the other optic was missing it made no sense to search for any emotion in there. One of the guards pushed the Con onto a chair and then moved to the back of the room, keeping the electric rod ready. Detalus examined the mech before him from the top of his helm to the soles of his pedes. Outride cocked his helm to take a better look too.

"Come to see my...faceplate... Hmm?"

"Do you really think I would show up only to ridicule you?"

The mech on the other side of the shatterproof glass lowered his optic as if a bit ashamed.

"No, you wouldn't... You're a practical mech. Does that mean..." He glanced at the older mech again, this time almost hopeful. "Does that mean I could be of some use to the Autobots?"

"Ain't you always the helpful one?" Detalus asked with a hint of sarcasm. "But today I'm simply here because I wanted to ask you about something."

"Did Counter Balance recruit you into asking his questions? Because other than that, I can't think of anything I didn't tell TiltShift already."

"No, Counter Balance didn't even tell me he had spoken with you since your capture and I saw the protocol of the interrogation." – And more than just that – But Detalus didn't say that out loud. "If TiltShift actually asked you, what I want to know, then he forgot to write your answer down. Though I doubt he would have asked you about the story of how you joined the Decepticons."

Outride's green frame tensed while his broken faceplate showed signs of both nervousness and confusion.

"The story? But there is no big story. Not worth yet another interrogation, I swear. I knew Swindle, everybot knew him and Swindle knew some high-ranked Decepticons. They had a recruitment back in Vos. It was over five solar cycles ago."

Outride was obviously afraid that Detalus might call for TiltShift to drag him back into that interrogation room for another 'session'. There was not much the old mech could do about that fear. All he could do was ask more questions.

"What interests me more is: Why make you a spy? You are a solid fighter and have a processor for tactics. Who was the mecha that decided that?"

Mentioning the mech's talents and strong sides seemed to calm Outride a little. He focused his optic on the tactician's faceplate as if trying to find a catch between his words.

"Commander Starscream made that decision as spymaster Soundwave wasn't present. I didn't ask for that assignment, I had no experience. I just wanted a rebuild to join the Armada." For a moment the prisoner went silent and thoughtful, probably fighting back some memories flooding his processor. "But he didn't allow that, he needed a spy. So I was sent to join the Autobots to prove that I'm useful. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Wait, go a step back there," Detalus had stumbled over something unusual in what Outride had just said. "You wanted a rebuilt? To join the Armada? You wanted them to make you a flier?"

"Yes."

That was… Detalus wasn't sure what to think about that. He had seen the recording of the torture after all, and Outride had shown the natural, primal fear of falling of every grounder frame. He had heard that acrobats or skyscraper assembly mechs could be trained out of it to some degree. But Outride had obviously not even had that much training. That only left direct reprogramming… or hadn't Outride even thought that far?

"Why?" He finally uttered an equally short counter-question.

Now it was the other's turn to ponder about the answer. And as he did, Detalus could see the same old Outride whom he had worked with for so long – Outride who had never been eager to share his doubts and fears, who had never talked much about his past.

"Why? That's a strange question, especially coming from a mech as knowledgeable as you. You've seen the Armada in 'action', you know what they are capable of," he leaned forward to the glass, keeping his voice down in a conspiracy-like manner. "You and I both know how hard it is to stand against a Seekers' air raid. Their speed, their precision... I wanted to be like them. And not like the rest of the grounders, who can only hide and pray for the missiles not to hit their home..."

That was what Outride had taken from the seekers attacking his hometown? Because if the dates were correct, everything added up to Outride joining the Decepticons right after the Autobots had dug him out of the ruins of Simfur. While there was a certain twisted logic to 'if the enemy is stronger than you – join them', morally it was wrong in more than just one way. Had Outride never had any connections to those other grounders, who had died in that very air-raid?

"I can at least see how you came to admire their abilities," Detalus forced himself to admit. "But had you been dissatisfied with your life already before that?"

The bright green mech seemed a tad surprised.

"Why do you care about my satisfaction? What does that matter now? I already lost that. My career, my loft, it was all gone. I had to start over. And now... I'd like to start over again. I can be useful. You know me, I'm hard working. I owe nothing to the Decepticons, nothing at all."

"If Starscream is your commanding officer, he'll see that entirely differently. You never had to deal with seekers before Simfur, had you?" Detalus wondered how long he could keep Outride from what he really thought. And somewhere deep in his old spark he felt that Outride did not deserve another chance because that just now speaking had definitely been Acrid the Decepticon, a mech who felt loyalty to no one.

Acrid shook his helm. "They don't mingle with grounders," there was something sad in the way he said that. "And before the war I had nothing to do with the military. I was a simple salesmech."

"How should I put this… It is not that they don't mingle with grounders, there were grounders living in and around Vos before the war, but the seekers saw them as 'not blessed by Primus' and only worthy of lowly servant work. They may have considered making you a flier though you'd never have been a seeker in their optics and they wouldn't have ever allowed for you to join any seeker squads, either."

Even if Detalus was trying his best to be careful with his words, they still managed to hurt Acrid, he could clearly see that. The seeker-wannabee lowered his helm and touched his acid-burned faceplate, rubbing the edge of the wound with his trembling fingers.

"Why do you tell me this? I already know that they didn't appreciate me and my...work. They could have called me back after I gave them that artifact on a silver platter. But they didn't..." He paused and ex-vented. "You have to understand, what I did was not because I hate the Autobots. I just needed to prove that I was useful to commander Starscream." With that he gazed back at the master tactician again, perhaps looking for some sympathy or at least understanding.

It was surprisingly tempting to feel sympathy for him and if Detalus had been just a couple of millennia younger he may have fallen into that trap.

The ugly truth was: Acrid was no one's friend! He could murder a mecha he had worked with for vorns in cold energon, without any second thought. Now he posed as an innocent victim and had bent the truth almost effortlessly to fit him. Most likely he had developed that talent of being an instinctive and unrepentant liar in his first career as a salesmech – with that smooth-talking skill he probably was able to sell life scraplets and the customers would have thanked him for it afterwards.

It was this very skill and his once pretty and open faceplate, he had used as well to make career in the Autobot forces at an astounding speed. Detalus made a mental note to speak with chief medic Thermo later – deal with the Decepticons or no deal – Acrid's faceplate was not to be restored. If the Cons decided, to supply plastic surgery later when they had him back, there was nothing he could do against it but Detalus would not allow for any Autobot medic to hand Acrid his most dangerous weapon back.

"I think I understand," he said aloud and rose from the chair on the visitors' side. "Now excuse me, it's getting late and I have work tomorrow."

The prisoner smiled, or at least tried to, what was left of his lipplates could only give a parody of a smile. "Thank you for coming, master tactician." The talk must have made him more confident than before. The guard walked over and pointed an electric rod at his back. Acrid stood up slowly. "One more thing: could you tell Counter Balance that I want to talk to him too? I'm willing to collaborate." As soon as those words left his mouth, he was led out of the room.

Detalus watched him go and wondered whether this would be the last time he saw his treacherous student. But then again, who knew what Primus had still in store for them.

oOo

Outride didn't have to wait long for the guards to show up in front of his cell again, he followed them without even a hint of resistance. Tarpit observed him silently from his usual place on the prison bunk, his scarred faceplate showing something in between amusement and disgust.

The big, white-framed mech was already waiting for him in the visitor's room. He was holding a datapad again – the same one as before? Probably a case file. But as soon as Outride sat down Counter shifted his attention to him.

oOo

"Detalus said you wanted to talk."

"Yes," the spy nodded, trying his best to sound polite. "Thank you for coming. How are the things at the base going?"

"Business as usual, but the part you would be interested in most is that both Low-key and Diode are on the way of recovery, I assume?" The spec ops. commander inquired. The mocking, sarcastic undertone was missing this time. He was interested as of how Outride would take those news. Would he be relieved that the prosecution would be down two murders pinned on him? Or would he be annoyed that he had failed to kill the Autobots?

The mech on the other side of the glass showed no emotion, he didn't even lower his gaze while uttering an obvious lie: "I'm glad. I've never wanted them to offline, both of them were..." he hesitated. "They were very useful to me."

"I see." Counter felt the anger boiling right back up in his tanks at the Decepticon's blatant admission that he judged other mecha only by their usefulness. It meant however, that Outride likely expected to be judged by his own usefulness as well. Was that something Counter could work with? He wasn't sure. "You already know the general topic I want to talk to you about, but let me clarify what I am interested in. The artifact transport was a secret mission and was supposed to be treated as such. You had neither the rank nor the security clearance to know the details of it. So how did you come about the intel?"

The spy cocked his helm to the right, making a quite confident impression. "I'm skilled, I suppose." He shrugged. "But it is you who coordinates the Iaconian intelligence's missions, you should know that spies don't sell their secrets for free. That's why I have an offer for you."

"And I am willing to listen. That is why we are both here," Counter replied, still trying to avoid making any promises. While he technically could assure Outride that he'd fulfill any demands however outrageous they were, it wouldn't do well for rumor to spread that Autobot officers weren't keeping their word. And if he agreed to terms which were too one-sided, Outride would realize something was up anyway. The mech wasn't stupid after all. "So, what did your tactical processor come up with in the meantime?"

"I figured that you want this certain information very much, why else would you bother visiting me in the medbay, waiting for me to wake up? And yet, this certain info didn't make it to the list of interrogation questions. Is it possible that this is personal for you and you don't want the other Autobots to know about it? You didn't even admit to Detalus that you went to see me, right?" He paused, judging Counter with his one, blue optic. "Anyway, I am ready to tell you what you want to know, with all the details, as an act of my good will. But why let it end there? I was operating in this base for solar cycles without being noticed, I have skills that could be useful for you, and for the Autobot Special Operation forces. And I've heard your team isn't the most successful one out there."

That proposal left Counter Balance speechless. Did Outride really believe Counter would ever be willing to trust him as his subordinate? Well, admittedly he didn't completely trust the drafted ex-Con Mayday either, or the ex-syndicate member Vault…or Temperance…or Neon and his big mouth. So what was the difference? 'Useful' this word was coming back to him. Did his team-members regard each other as 'useful' or 'convenient'? Did they casually call each other or him 'friends'? His lot may not be supportive, or qualified, or experienced – pit they were probably the furthest away from 'useful' beings they could be but they didn't simply discard each other just for that.

"I admit that you probably have more skill and experience than my entire team combined, Outride, and we don't exactly have high standards picking our agents either as you probably already know as well, since you saw that list with their names. But do you really believe you could work with them and not offline them all within a groon from sheer exasperation about their incompetence? Primus knows what keeps me from it sometimes."

The quizzical look on Outride's damaged faceplate told Counter that the spy didn't expect that kind of honesty.

"If that is so... Why do you keep those bots? You are a clever and observant mech, you could do better than that. Why are you not recruiting more fitting mechas? I'd gladly help you training them."

"And that is the problem the two of us have here, Outride, the 'why'. Realizing what the 'why' is, is the minimum requirement to be on that team," he explained, although he was aware that he sounded unintentionally cryptic. Maybe Outride would even know a term to call it, like loyalty, responsibility or sentimentality but unless the Con could grasp the meaning behind it too, Counter wouldn't let him anywhere near his team.

The prisoner lowered his optic and observed his own cuffed servos for some time, probably calculating.

"Pity," he exvented. "We could have both gained something but your emotions affect your logic. I understand that you are attached to your team and you wouldn't agree to work with somebot you despise." The unsaid 'somebot like me' was so obvious that he could as well have said it aloud. The spy interlocked his digits and looked back at Counter. "But what if I told you that it was one of your team-members who helped me to get the information about the artifact's transfer?"

Counter's processor raced, was that possible? Temperance, Blackjack and Vault had been off planet, while Crosscut and Mayday hadn't even been recruited into the unit back then. His assistant Neon had overheard too much about the mission, so he had been included for Counter to keep the talkative youngling within his line of sight. That only left a single mecha that could be responsible for the intel leaking and that was…himself. Had Counter been negligent in his duty to keep the information secret? And be it only by not keeping watch over his assistant diligently enough?

"The same as for anymecha else, who 'helped' you getting secret intel, Outride. There will be an investigation, maybe a demotion, maybe worse, depending on what that investigation uncovers."

If that whole mess had been his own fault, then he'd have to accept the responsibility, though a demotion might actually be a relief.

"I'm not an Autobot, remember? Why would I care about demotions among you? What I care about is only what you could offer me back for that information."

"So, you wouldn't care about getting some form of revenge that way? On the despicable Autobot agents? That is some display of not letting your emotions rule your actions. But let's see what I can offer. Since with this information you would incriminate yourself, the ambush on the artifact transport would not be listed against you during your trial. As long as we, and with that I mean myself and my superiors, come to the conclusion that your information is correct."

Outride slowly shook his helm.

"That won't do, not with all the other things I have told you already thanks to TiltShift's hard work." He sent his adversary an acidic glare but Counter withstood it without even a blink. "If I'm put on trial, you Autobots will make a scapegoat out of me, it will be a circus for the troopers – not justice. If you contact my superior however...you Autobots could negotiate with them and perhaps we could all be satisfied by the outcome, don't you think?"

Counter did a double take at that. This was completely unexpected but he caught himself before he could betray how much this actually played into his servos.

"Negotiating with the Decepticons? Are you aware how complicated that would be?"

"You said it yourself, Cons and Bots talk business all the time. So talk with commander Starscream, make them agree to pay a ransom for my release. And I promise you, I will return the favor. When I'm back to the Decepticons, I could contact you, report whatever you want. The Cons will never expect it – this face is my perfect alibi, you know."

Counter took a while with his answer, trying his best to look as if he was weighing the pros and the cons of the suggestion. It was helping that he didn't think any intel the natural-traitor in front of him could possibly provide would be true. Besides for all he knew, the Decepticons might drag Outride right into Shockwave's laboratory for yet another interrogation once they had him back. Still possible bad intel was better than no intel at all.

"Fine, I'll speak with general Quasar and see about what can be arranged. The Decepticons should have something we'd be willing to trade for you and if it is only energon or medical supplies."

The spy's blue optic glimmered with joy or perhaps it was just a sheer satisfaction of this false success.

"Then it's a deal," he nodded, the corner of his lipplates curved up on the right side of his face as the other side stayed motionless and creepy. "Just show me a proof that the negotiation process is on and I'll tell you how it was with the artifact of your interest."

With a pointed look, Counter activated his comm: "General Quasar? I need to talk to you… "

oOo

Tarpit cast his fellow prisoner a look as Outride was shoved back into his cell by the guard. Whatever had happened in the meantime, the other mech had apparently not been tortured again. That piqued his curiosity.

"So how is your oh-so-awesome plan for collaboration going?" he asked.

Outride couldn't really smirk anymore but the expression came relatively close.

"It's going pretty good."

oOo

This morning Quasar had polished his armor more carefully than ever, after all he had a teleconference today. Standing in front of the main screen in the communication room he felt a bit nervous, he didn't know what to expect from his interlocutor. He rarely did the talking-with-the-Deceptions thing, it was not even his strong side to bargain and argue. But what had to be done, had to be done and he was the base's commanding officer, he represented the Autobots and he wanted to do it well.

The communications room had been cleared of all unnecessary personnel and checked for monitoring devices just to be on the safe side. For once it would be worse, if their own troops got wind of the negotiations than some Decepticon spies, as had been pointed out, morale would drop to a new record low.

To get the prisoner exchange going they needed to speak with the commanding officer of the two Decepticons, since only he could judge their worth, unfortunately the mech in question was…

The screen sprang to life with a static buzz.

"I agreed to listen to what you lowly Autobots want. It is better worth my precious, precious time. But I will graciously accept your terms of surrender," the silvery grey seeker purred.

Quasar fought back the twitch of his upper lip-plate caused by his annoyance suddenly rising to a sky-high level.

"We want to discuss the terms of a prisoner exchange," he corrected and noticed that the Decepticon on the other side tapped his claws onto his arm impatiently. Ignoring that, the Autobot went on: "As you were informed, we currently have two Decepticon soldiers in our custody."

"And why would I care about some cannonfodder that didn't even manage to escape you on their own?" Starscream inquired, his tone implying that he was speaking with someone with a serious processor damage.

"We are not talking about simple troopers but about a deep-cover agent and a communication specialist. We are willing to exchange those two prisoners for the three Autobot officers who have been captured five orns ago by a Seeker squadron. I'm sending you the files of the mecha in question."

General Quasar waved his servo, giving a sign to the communication mecha in front of the control panel. The soldier sent the data and a moment later the files popped up on the big screen next to Starscream's helm.

"I doubt they are worth even half a cube of energon each but I will check your offer over." Starscream waved off before he cut the transmission without further ado, leaving the Autobots to stare at a black screen.

'How rude,' thought Quasar and looked at the master tactician.

"At least he was going to read it," the elder mech stated.

The general only exvented, he expected more respect than that. Talking with the Cons was so... Not for him, it seemed.

oOo

: …about a deep-cover agent and a communication specialist. We are willing to exchange those two prisoners for the three Autobot officers who have been captured five orns ago by a Seeker squadron. I'm sending you the files of the mecha in question. :

Outride's mood had lifted considerably in very short span of time and now that he watched a replay of the negotiations he could barely hold back a purr of his engine. Commander Starscream himself was negotiating for his freedom! Things looked up indeed.

"That settles it then?" That annoying Autobot ops commander more asked than stated "I held up my part of the deal. You know what I want to know."

Outride allowed himself to smirk: "Yes, you upheld your part of the bargain. So listen closely because I'm not gonna repeat myself and I doubt any of your agents could ever come up with something like this…"

oOo

"He planned all that himself?" Detalus stared at Counter in disbelieve. "How long did it take him? Checking all those schedules, calculating the timing? I don't even have to tell you that he was also doing his usual duties at the office back then."

The other mech exvented as he shook his yellow helm: "Apparently half the base knew about the 'secret' storage room on the lower levels, so he had been planning to take a look inside almost since he first arrived, but the orn of the artifact transport? He said it took him about two joors to put everything together on time. I'm just glad that apparently aside from Tarpit no one helped him knowing – or unknowingly."

"Two joors, huh? Do you think what I think?"

"That he is too dangerous to let him go back to the Cons?"

The old tactician only closed his optics and slowly nodded but what he really thought was more like: "I taught him too well."

oOo

Back on the battleship Harbinger Starscream stared at the two Decepticon files the Autobots had transmitted earlier. 'Who are those guys?' he wondered confused.

"You there!" He pointed a digit at the Vehicon at the communications console. "Get me what we have about those two failures in our database. And contact Soundwave for me, whether one or both of them work for him. And while you are at it, find out how far our interrogators are with the prisoners, this whole thing will be pointless if they are already offline after all."

The drone hurriedly went to work, but it would probably take a while to get all data together and it might take even longer to contact Soundwave, if he was out on the battlefield or on a mission personally. In the meantime, Starscream would have to at least glance over the profiles. Seriously he should have left the whole useless bargaining to one of the Vehicons to begin with. What a bother!

oOo

After few breems of waiting all the Autobots in the communication room, including the general, got too frustrated by the silence from the Con's side and the negotiations were considered on hold. Quasar who had never been so offended since the last 'family dinner' with his dear creator, stormed back to his office. He had better things to do than staring at the empty monitor waiting for Starscream to generously make up his mind.

Four joors later, one of the communication officers knocked at his door.

"Sir, the Decapticons are willing to negotiate again."

With a heavy ex-vent Quasar rose from his seat. If not for the imprisoned Autobots who needed his help, he wouldn't agree to walk back there again.

"Finally! I told you Autoscum, my time was precious! If you want your mecha back so badly, you shouldn't keep me waiting!" The seeker on the vidscreen grumbled.

Quasar's right servo clinched at the sheer sound of Starscream's rant.

"It was you who kept us waiting," he reminded. "What is the Decepticons' answer? Do we have a deal?"

The Seeker waved his claws in a dismissive manner: "Not exactly. I have a different kind of offer for you to consider, but better decide fast."


	14. The worth of a mech

Something was up, definitely! Tarpit and Acrid had been rushed out of their cells together by a small escort of guards and been brought to the prison medbay. And something was wrong with that, because the medics there had only repaired the life-threatening damage after the torture session, and not replaced a single piece of plating more than necessary. Additionally, Acrid and him were both in the medbay at the same time – the Autobots were planning something and they were in a hurry. But Tarpit didn't have enough information to guess what. Maybe Acrid would have an idea? He knew the officers here better, and he had apparently been attempting to negotiate something.

The medbay was bustling with activity as the Autobots moved around the two medberths and reattached missing armor-parts they were even polishing and cleaning their plating. Neither of the Cons resisted – not like they could do much while being strapped down and well-guarded. The only time Tarpit heard Acrid protesting was when the medic smeared something over his half-melted faceplate.

"Don't touch it!" Acrid hissed angrily.

"Oh, don't worry," the medic replied snidely, "we're not gonna fix that."

"What is this all about?" The spy tried to ask but to no avail.

The medic only cast a short glance at the chief medical officer and replied: "I'm too busy for chitchat." ending that line of inquiry permanently.

Tarpit frowned, apparently the officers had restricted the information. That was kind of suspicious.

Soon enough the patch up was done and the medics seemed to be waiting for something to happen. There was some shuffle to be heard outside of the medbay door. Then the guards came in, the officer commanding them didn't look like a security mecha.

"That one," the Autobot pointed at Tarpit with the helm's gesture and the guards, armed not only with electric-rods but also with blasters, began to unstrap him.

Now that didn't sound ominous at all... Tarpit didn't like being singled out like that, even if there were just two of them in the room to begin with. For all he knew they could be dragging him in front of a drum head court martial and just execute him once the prosecutor was done reading the charges. Sure, he didn't think that the Autobots would disregard protocol like that, but until a few orns back he hadn't believed they'd have their prisoners tortured either.

The fact that Acrid seemed just as confused as himself didn't help.

Surprisingly enough, it was the old chief medic who stopped the guards from dragging Tarpit away.

"Wait an astrosecond," the mech called at the small procession right before they could leave, "and what about the other one?" He obviously referred to the now tensing-up Acrid.

The officer in charge turned back to the elderly medic.

"I don't have any orders about him, Sir. He may return to his cell for now, if he is done here."

Just great! Well, for now Tarpit wouldn't resist, everything was better than being dragged back into the interrogation room and at least this seemed to go into another direction…

oOo

Back in his prison cell, Outride paced up and down the narrow space trying to think clearly. What were the Autobots up to? Where had they taken Tarpit? Had the two of them been repaired for the trial? No, impossible, Counter Balance had shown him recordings, the negotiations for his exchange had already started.

The sound of pedesteps interrupted him, he halted and listened carefully. The guards were leading Tarpit back to the prison, one glance was enough to see that the black carformer was intact, not tortured, not even dented, and what was even more suspicious, he looked kind of happy.

Outride rebooted his optics. How was that possible? No more than a joor had passed since the Autobots called for Tarpit and he was already back? As the curiosity won over the shame of admitting how clueless he was right now, Outride walked over to the bars and called at the other Con.

"Hey, Tarpit! What was that about?"

"Looks like 'someone' really appreciates all the hard work I was doing for the Decepticon cause. Commander Starscream has negotiated for my release. Tomorrow I'm driving outta here as a free mech."

Tarpit couldn't help but smirk while Outride couldn't believe his audials.

"What? That's... Just perfect! They agreed to exchange us?"

His deep-blue biolights twinkled happily as he imagined getting back to the Decepticon army, maybe even finally getting his well-deserved rebuilt.

"Who said anything about 'us'?" Tarpit's rough voice brought him back into the here and now.

Outride shuttered his one working optic in confusion. "But you just said Starscream negotiated our release."

"Nope, the Autobots had us both up for offer, but Starscream demanded a ransom to be paid in energon and spare parts for the other prisoners he had." Tarpit didn't even try to suppress a chuckle. "But maybe the Autobots can still sell you as the spare parts."

For once, and that didn't happen too often, Outride did not know what to say – he just stared at Tarpit, waiting to hear him say something like: 'I'm kidding', but the black-framed mech wasn't eager to break the sudden silence between them.

"Spare parts? He asked for a bunch of spare parts... Instead of me?" He mumbled slowly realizing what that meant for him. His own commanding officer preferred some rubbish over the one who had worked so hard to infiltrate the Autobots' base. In Starscream's optics he must have been worth less than a trash. "Why?" He inquired, his voice almost cracking.

"Apparently everyone at headquarters shares my opinion of you: Useless!" Tarpit sneered.

The ex-tactician hadn't understood the reasons behind his commander's decision but just now everything became clear to him at once.

"It was you!" he hissed through his broken dentas, his optic burning with rage and murderous intentions. "You told him I wanted to collaborate with the Autobots, you scum! You made me look like a traitor!"

"Did I now? Then answer me one thing, Acrid: Why was I called in there alone to talk with commander Starscream and not both of us? And because your little processor would probably fry itself before it came to the right conclusion: He didn't want to see you to begin with."

"That's because you stole my accomplishments, you fragger! You were the one who reported in all the intel but it was My work! MINE!"

If not for the electric bars and the corridor between the two of them, Outride would surely throw himself at Tarpit to beat the living Pit out of him, the Autobots had known what they were doing when placing the Cons in separate cells.

"You'll pay for this, Tarpit! You hear me!" The bright-green mech kept shouting at the other, his outburst quickly turning into a flood of swearwords and incoherent growls.

If anything at all Tarpit was only amused at this powerless display of aggression. He patiently waited until Acrid had spent most of his vocabulary before he calmly retorted: "I wish I could say it was a pleasure working with you, but really it wasn't. It is adieu, I guess."

In his cell, Outride leaned against a wall, all tired out and sank to the floor with a mournful sound.

oOo

When he had arrived at the Macron Gamma base, the spec ops commander hadn't expected that much to happen. He had solved the mystery of the three unsolved incidents, caught a deep cover agent and almost got offlined not once but twice. Now he was just glad it was over. During his long and complicated investigation, Counter had learned even more than he had hoped for. He had found out about TiltShift's illegal interrogation methods, about Low-Keys dangerous tendency to snoop and about the shift-trading by most of the foot soldiers – but from now on, and mostly thanks to him, this would end and Macron Gamma would finally work efficiently as a military base.

Even though it didn't please him that one of the arrested Decepticons had gotten away with his crimes, the prisoner exchanged had been quite successful. Three Autobot officers, not in a great shape but still online, had returned to their home bases without further complications. Now that the Decepticon called Tarpit was free, he would probably be sent to another city to do his dirty job again – maybe with a different name and different paintjob but with the same low tricks as before. Thank Primus, Counter's decryption team now had a sample of the code that Tarpit had been using and next time he showed his faceplate, they would be prepared to swiftly catch him and his petro-rats. And at least the other Con was brought to justice, Counter didn't even have to break his word given to Outride – it was Starscream's decision after all, not the Autobots.

oOo

Quasar rose from his chair as his guests were led inside. The two mecha had arrived together and seemed to get along companionable despite the opposing roles they would soon take on in the coming trial. If there was any rivalry between them, they didn't show it. Quasar knew Veto the prosecutor in passing. The mech was a cynic and had a sharp glossa. He hadn't met Paragraph the defense attorney yet though, the mech seemed surprisingly young. But the general at once corrected himself, Paragraph only appeared young, lacking scratches and dents and the roughed-up armor of the frontliners he was dealing with every orn, the mech's perfect finish left the impression he had just stepped down from an assembly line.

Young or not, Quasar already started to feel bad for the mech – representing a "hated by everybot" traitor didn't sound like the best way to gain the soldiers appreciation. The general could really do without any more havoc among the angry troopers.

"I believe you two are aware of the seriousness of that case," he began not even certain of how to put his thoughts into a sentence that wouldn't offend the attorney right on the spot. "These crimes turned many Autobots on this base vengeful. Are you sure you can handle such pressure, Paragraph?"

The lawyer let his dentas blink in a charming smile: "It wouldn't be my first challenging case, sir. And there can't be a proper trial without a defense, right?"

"Pfff!" Veto snorted: "Could have fooled me, if I didn't know that you always pick hopeless cases like this. But you'd have to be naive if you think you will win this one."

"It is the truth that will win, not me. I am only helping my clients."

This line didn't sit well with Quasar, it sounded as if Paragraph was insinuating that the con spy might not be guilty, which was just ridiculous. Counter Balance had collected so much evidence against the traitorous mech that the only thing that could possibly save Outride now was Primus himself.

"Speaking of which," the lawyer gave the prosecutor a sharp look, "from now on, nobot should question Outride without me being present."

"Fine. I want to talk with some of the witnesses first anyway. Especially this mech Blackjack, I understand he is not a regular soldier of this base and could be called off for another assignment any moment. Also I want to speak with the former chief of security Low-Key as soon as the medics declare her fit for questioning." Veto looked at Quasar to see if he had any objections.

Wanting to speak with Counter Balance's subordinate quickly made some sense, though the spec ops commander would hardly send Blackjack on another mission before he had given his testimony. But why did Veto want to speak with Low-Key that urgently? Did the mech expect her to offline after all? Quasar felt somewhat offended now for his medical team, his doctors were better than that.

Paragraph interrupted before the general had opportunity to answer anything: "In that case, I will go visit my client to introduce myself and inform that poor spark about the upcoming trial."

"Oh, he already found out about the trial." Quasar replied cryptically. The 'Poor spark' part made him cringe inwardly. Either Paragraph was already trying to manipulate opinions, or he was incredibly naive and idealistic. "I will give you the necessary keycards and security clearance."

oOo

The orn of the trial finally came, the judge from Iacon had arrived on the base early. Counter sat in one of the big training rooms which had been redecorated as the courtroom and wondered what the lawyer would possibly have to say in Outride's defense. The guilt of the spy was as clear as a crystal, so this definitely should not be a long process.

Everybot who was allowed into the courtroom to witness the trial had already taken their seats. Most of the officers from the Macron Gamma were there, but also several of the lower ranked soldiers like Tapwire.

Then the guards brought Outride in which immediately triggered some whispers on the courtroom. Apparently, if not for the yellow-green color scheme, several of the mecha wouldn't have recognized their former officer. The spy sitting in the dock behind the well of the court being a shadow of a mech, not the clever and chatty Outride that everybot used to know. The Autobot insignia on his pale-green chassis had already been crossed out.

As the court was called to order, the prosecutor called Veto stepped forward: "I will now read the list of crimes the former Autobot officer Outride alias Decepticon deep cover agent Acrid is accused of having committed," he declared, loud enough to be heard even back in the furthest corner of the vast training room and the audience stilled even more. "He is accused of: espionage, sabotage, three assassination attempts on Autobot officers resulting in severe frame injury to two different mecha and mechslaughter in one case, armed resistance upon arrest, assault with intent to kill resulting in severe chassis injury to another mecha, taking of a hostage, assistance at jailbreak and…," here the prosecutor's voice rose a little more "…planning of an ambush on an entire transport convoy resulting in mechslaughter in another four cases."

"In the matter of the Autobots vs Outride, Outride, how do you plead?" the judge asked strictly.

There were only a very few points on the list of accusations, Outride did not plead straight 'guilty' for, however the one they had wanted him to be sentenced for the most – his involvement with the attack on the supply convoy where four Autobot soldiers got killed – was one of those.

As Outride had pleaded 'not guilty', the attack on the convoy was going to be covered first. The prosecutor listed the relevant facts like the date of the incident and the names of the Autobots involved for everyone in the courtroom to hear. The autopsy report that had been filed long before Outride had even become a suspect stated that while three of the Autobots had been killed by long distance Seeker weapons, the last one had been shot from close by, by a standard blaster like Outride was using. Furthermore, despite being damaged severely, Outride had been the only mech sporting not a single injury by any form of gun.

Veto showed he had done his homework but this would be very hard to prove, Counter mused, as there were no surviving witnesses and the gathering of evidence back then had to be neglected somewhat in favor of getting the one survivor to medical quickly.

"The defendant has the right to testify in order to describe his version of the events of said orn. Do you want to testify, Outride," the judge asked and the bright-green mech rebooted his damaged vocalizer.

"Yes, your Honor. I didn't plan this attack. How could I? I got informed on this mission only an orn before it," the spy tried to explain himself. "I had no means and no desire to contact the Decepticons about this mission. It was not an important transport after all. On our way back we spotted two mecha, one of them being a Decapticon medic called NorthStar. I didn't recognize her at once so I ordered to check on whoever that might be. When we approached, more Decepticons appeared. The Seekers shot the transportation bots and the Autobot soldier, NorthStar offlined the other Autobot but she recognized me and ordered the other Decepticons to spare me out of the gratitude for helping her to escape from the transport."

"Please explicate how you received your own injuries during the incident," the judge instructed.

Outride went on about how the Cons, not believing that he was one of them, had scrapped him and how he had survived only thanks to the femme holding them back from delivering the final blow.

Counter was disgusted listening to this, it sounded almost as if the traitor wanted them to feel sorry for oh-so-poor him. It made some sense however that NorthStar was involved, he remembered that one suspicious and unusual injury that Outride had come back with – the bite-mark on his neck cable. Where had that come from? The mech's story did not explain that little detail. Unfortunately no note of the bite-mark had never made it into the official medical report, so the prosecutor wasn't going to ask, whether Outride and that seeker femme had been snogging over the offline frames of the convoy mecha – that would have given the judge a far more accurate impression of the traitor's character.

Instead, Veto stated that knowing of the transport one orn beforehand would have meant an entire nightcycle of time to inform the Decepticons about the convoy.

"I didn't leave the base that night," Outride claimed and his lawyer, called Paragraph, confirmed that by showing the data from the off-duty permissions log.

"Didn't you make that contact in some other way? You had many possibilities," the prosecutor continued. "And before my dear colleague argues that no suspicious comm-chatter was recorded that nightcycle either, I'd like to remind your Honor, that the defendant's Con contact in town was found to have tamed petro-rats for transporting flimsies with messages."

"Petro-rats?" This time Counter couldn't help but notice that Outride seemed genuinely surprised. "I didn't know about any pertro-rats. Tarpit had never told me how he contacts the Cons."

"My dear colleague forgot that my client's private quarters were inspected and no signs of illegal mechanimals were found," Paragraph replied. "No cages, no gnaw marks or excreta to prove that thesis."

"No, instead the quarters' search brought up a nice little collection of datapads with intimate studies of seeker femme chassis. Are you really trying to tell us that you weren't jumping at an opportunity to see that seeker NorthStar again, Outride?" Veto hurled the next accusation at the pale-green mech.

"Objection!" the attorney shouted. "My client's intimate preferences are not a matter of this trial."

The audience sounded amused, whispers and snide remarks could be heard even from the first row where Counter Balance was sitting.

"Silence in the courtroom!" the mech on court security called out.

"Objection overruled," the judge calmly said. "Let's hear the answer."

Outride didn't look too happy to explain himself, but who would be, having to talk about those sorts of 'interests' in front of dozens of hateful mecha.

"I had no idea she'd be there! Even if I had somehow managed to get a message out – and I always went to the town to meet Tarpit personally, when I had a report – I wouldn't have had any means to know whether the Decepticon command would even send someone or whom exactly." Outride's voice got a bit louder as he was defending himself once more.

"And was that information something the Decepticon command would have just ignored? At that time there was a hole in the wall of this very base, big enough for several prisoners to comfortably fit through and escape, rendering the entire cell block useless and meaning a huge leak in base security. With the supply convoy waylaid, the repairs have been interrupted for at least half an orn," the prosecutor continued seamlessly.

"Sabotaging the repairs wouldn't have gained me anything! All the prisoners were transferred at that time. I had no reason and no orders to cause that mission to fail!"

"Then why did you cover for the bots who were responsible for yet another delay by wasting the materials on pranking their colleague?"

"You can't blame me for some idiots pranking eachother!" the Con yelled and the judge had to use his gavel this time.

"I remind you that a vocabulary like that is not allowed here, Outride. Do you understand that?

"Yes, your Honor..." he confirmed reluctantly, visibly still angry at where this all was going. "I meant that I had nothing to do with any pranks either. I covered for Tip-Trope just because I wanted him to owe me something so I could later ask him for something in return."

"So you admit that the mecha on this base who you called comrades and friends to their faceplates, were nothing more than tools for you to use and then to discard when they were no longer of worth?" The prosecutor seemed not even to ask Outride at this point anymore and turned to the judge. "Your Honor, whether he pulled the trigger himself or simply stood by to let the other Decepticons do the dirty work for him is not important since the defendant would surely have gotten rid of the convoy mecha without hesitation anyway. As we all heard, this mech presents a striking disregard for mecha life and well-being so he might have as well led his underlings into this trap on purpose with a full intent to be the only survivor reporting back."

Those words caused a big commotion in the courtroom, the angry voices got louder and somebot even clapped their hands on a sign of approval for the prosecutor. The judge slammed his gavel down multiple times while Paragraph shouted out his objection and something about 'it being all just insinuations'.

oOo

The hearing went on and there was no end to the questions but nothing proved Outride's version of the events to be false. The spy stood there the whole time, cuffed and chained to the floor as the most dangerous individual would be, his answers grew shorter since he got more tired and his out of tune vocalizer started to fail.

"If neither the prosecution nor the defense have more questions to the defendant, the court will proceed to the cross-examining of witnesses. Does the defendant want to make any last statement?"

"Yes, your Honor. I just want everybot to know that what I did, I didn't do out of maliciousness or hatred. I was simply following my orders, believing that my role was important. I was wrong," he made a dramatic pause there but truth be told Counter knew how little the Cons appreciate sly, little and not-too-lucky spies like Outride and if the mech believed otherwise he indeed had been very, very mistaken. "I am responsible for Boltcutter's offlining but that was an accident – I didn't know he was in the brig that orn. I did attack and injure Diode but it was in self-defense, I didn't even use acid, trying to spare him the suffering. As for taking the hostage, I just wanted to escape and that was the only way, I didn't want to offline the master tactician, I didn't mean to offline anybot from this base. My only target was always Counter Balance..."

Hearing that made the energon rush hum in Counter's audials so he barely registered the rest of the statement. He couldn't listen to that rubbish anyway. For him there was no doubt that Outride was full of lies but would that be enough for the judge to sentence the mech to death?


	15. The final act

He couldn't believe, he was late for the traitor's trial. The door to the training room – now the makeshift courtroom – was already closed. Preparing himself for embarrassment, Echo sneaked inside and took a seat.

"What did I miss?" he whispered to his neighbor.

oOo

Disturbed by some irresponsible latecomer, Counter Balance turned around just to see Tapwire not-so-quietly whispering with Echo as if all the shuffling and commotion hadn't been enough already.

The two guards cringed under his glare. Counter decided to ignore them to concentrate back on the trial. While it was only a question of how severe the punishment was going to be, all the witnesses needed to be heard.

"I was so afraid they'd hurt me." Big coolant tears were pearling from the optics of the white-framed femme at the witness stand. Counter Balance hadn't even thought this grade of acting being possible – maybe he should ask Piffpaff to give his agents lessons?

"The witness knew the Decepticon Tarpit for over three cycles, is that correct?" The lawyer inquired. "Which is longer than my client. That leads to my next question – what kind of relationship did the two of you have?"

Counter could see Piffpaff avoiding the optic contact with Outride's advocate.

"Just a business contact," she shrugged and crossed her long legs, some of the mecha on the courtroom oggled her as she did.

"What kind of business? Dealing the red energon shards with you, perhaps? Is the witness addicted to that particular substance? Or was it just a coincidence that it had been found in both, your work place and Tarpit's hideout?"

"Objection!" The prosecutor interrupted. "Red energon while an illegal substance, has no deteriorating effects on an addict's mind. The damage when overdosed or imbibed frequently is solely to the consumer's frame. Memory loss and hallucinations are not symptoms and thus the testimony of the witness is not influenced by substance abuse. "

"Objection!" Now the defense cut it. "The substance IS known to change the user's perception and while it's true that memory loss or hallucinations are rare, it still can leave the addict in a state of confusion or with a feeling of danger during a completely neutral situation, due to the sudden difference in experiencing the flow of time."

Counter groaned, this was supposed to be a short and clear trial, and instead the lawyer and the prosecutor were nitpicking over the effects of a substance they had found in so low amounts and concentrations that Piffpaff would hardly have gotten an overdose, if she had somehow managed to down Tarpit's entire stash in one gulp. If this was how the entire Q&A part was gonna be like, they'd still be sitting here in a decaorn.

oOo

The next witness was called and this time it was Low-Key, the security femme still didn't look so good after the fatal orn she had been poisoned. She told the whole story about that event and Counter felt a shiver running down his spinal strut. It sounded like a single gulp less had decided on her staying online while the other mech had gotten deactivated. The prosecutor even showed the result of the medical analysis – the poison was identified as hyrdafloric acid, the very same that had been used in Tapwire's quarters and on the defective cuffs left behind by the seekers who had escaped during the transport.

The defense was more interested in that last topic and grilled poor Low-Key about the jailbreak circumstances: "Did you see the accused interacting with the Decepticon femme called NorthStar?", "How would you describe their interactions?", "How was that Seeker femme treated? Did she get injured or humiliated during her time in the prison?"

Low-Key did her best to answer everything but the prosecutor as well as the lawyer kept interrupting with different evidence – namely the security vid-files and the femme's failing health was showing.

"Objection!" Everyone stared surprised at chief medic Thermo who had thrown the word into the stunned court. "If you're planning to drag out this argument, release Low-Key from the witness stand first! Medical orders! I won't allow for her to offline from fatigue because of your thoughtlessness!"

The lawyer didn't look too happy about that medical intervention since he was probably just a step before proving that said Seeker femme had been tortured which made his client performing not an act of sabotage but an act of mercy.

As amusing as it was, Counter had to admit that if not for the Con femme Outride wouldn't have slipped that soon. It was always the femme behind every crime – the Meister's novels had taught him that and they had been right again.

All in all, Low-Key got released and Welder took her place as a witness now.

oOo

If the young medic was nervous being called into the witness stand he at least didn't show, paying his full attention to the judge who finally ordered:

"With your own words describe, what happened after you arrived at the warehouse the fugitive Outride was hiding in!"

Welder briefly told how the place had been cordoned off, before the master tactician Detalus, the security mech Diode and Counter Balance himself had ventured inside, while the medic had stayed behind, monitoring the vital uplinks to the team from a safe distance as ordered.

"I went in only when Diode's signal suddenly dropped into critical. Luckily I was able to triangulate his position fast enough. He had been shot in the back with a blaster from a short distance and his main fuelpump had taken a direct hit. I was busy rendering aid, when the medical scanner warned me, that another mech, who's vitals had not been linked to me, was getting closer behind me. When I turned, it was Outride, aiming a blaster at my helm. I used the welding torch I was holding to fend him off."

The judge nodded to that: "Then now the prosecutor has the word. Your witness."

Veto turned to the medic: "What do you think Outride's intentions were when he sneaked up on you?"

Medic's whole expression turned a note grimmer: "He was planning to shoot me, while I was distracted."

"So the witness thinks that the defendant was ready to shoot an unaware medical offficer doing his job? What makes the witness assume that?"

"Aside from that blaster being aimed at my helm? The fact that it was powered up and the safety was off." Welder growled.

"And the fact that the defendant knew you for so long and you were probably the last person he talked with before his escape changed nothing in that case? You're still certain the defendant wouldn't hesitate?"

"He had already shot Diode in the back at that point, a mech he was far better acquainted with than with me. I have no doubt I'd have been an offliner, had I reacted just a bit slower." The small mech affirmed.

"I see," Veto nodded as if they were speaking about things like the morning energon. "And do you think Diode had a chance to fight back before he got shot?"

"As I said Diode was shot in the back, his own blaster was charged though the safety was still on, he had brought a second weapon but that was still slung over his shoulder. Diode was on alert but he was caught completely off guard nevertheless. Outride could have probably just sneaked by him without being noticed at all instead of attacking."

"I have no more questions to the witness," the prosecutor announced walking through the courtroom like an actor on stage. "We all heard enough to know that the defendant was able not only of shooting to kill his former friend without getting engaged in a fight but traitorously sneaking up behind him, but also to offline a medic on duty. There is no space for any self-defense as the defendant suggested before which leaves us with only one logical assumption – he was lying, your Honor."

Counter had to grudgingly give the defense lawyer credit for at least trying to argue that Welder hadn't actually witnessed Outride having shot Diode and thus couldn't fully judge the situation. But it was a really weak performance. And as he didn't have any further questions, the judge ordered for Welder to continue his testimony.

"At that point master tactician Detalus charged in and tackled Outride, I was considering assisting him but Diode was still in critical condition, so I had to concentrate on him. They started to fight, there were some gunshots but none of them hit any of us. And then that black-framed special ops agent appeared. Outride mistook him for Counter Balance and took Detalus as a hostage to protect himself. I heard the master tactician asking what the Cons had paid Outride to turn traitor and Outride answering he had been a Con all along. He unleashed his acid gun and threaten to use it on his hostage, if we won't let him escape. I remember how he said: 'Ask Low-Key how she felt after one drop of that acid' which sounded a lot like he was proud of almost offlining her."

As the words echoes through the courtroom, Counter could swear that he heard someone cursing pretty ugly and he was almost sure it had to be Low-Key who hadn't known that fact until just now.

"In the time Outride was bragging, Counter Balance sneaked up on him and caught his armed servo." The medic proceeded with the story, most of bots on the audience listened to it carefully and with a mix of excitement and dread. "The three of them struggled and Outride was about to use the acid on Counter. I had to stop him, so I sprinted to them and redirected his arm. And that was how his face-plat got melted. After that he wasn't able to put up any resistance anymore. I neutralized the acid by using a base liquid and then put Outride into medical stasis. That was all that happened that orn, your Honor."

"So the defendant admitted almost killing the chief of security Low-Key during his apprehension and showed no remorse, in the contrary he was threatening to kill his former commanding officer and teacher the master tactician Detalus with the same acid and attempted to kill Spec Ops commander Counter Balance, while hiding behind a hostage. The prosecution has no further questions at this point."

"Does the defense have any questions for the witness?" the judge asked and Paragraph rose from his seat.

"Yes, your Honor. I'd like to ask the witness, if I understood the course of events correctly. Did the master tactician Detalus attacked my client first? Without demanding his surrendering?"

"At that point Diode was already lying on the floor in his own energon." Welder retorted. "Don't you think it was a bit late for that?"

"And was it also too late to demand his surrendering while he tried to negotiate his escape? Did any of the Special Operation bots ordered the defendant to put his weapon down before approaching him? Yes or no?"

The attorney's voice got a little bit harsher and Welder seemed to start showing nervousness. But he caught himself almost immediately. Medics had strong nerves in time of crisis Counter mused, the defense lawyer had picked the wrong witness to pressure.

"I'm the wrong mech to ask anyway, I have not been there from the start of the battle, as you have pointed out already before."

"I'm asking about the part you saw, or rather heard. Did anybot said anything to Outride other than accusing him of the betrayal? You said that you heard the defendant bragging so I assume you'd hear, if the Autobots adhered to the procedure and ordered my client to drop his weapon before attacking him? It looks like more than one rule was broken that orn, your Honor. No wonder that the defendant was pushed to his limits and decided to desperately use his weapon while surrounded by three mecha of whose intentions he couldn't be sure of, as they weren't expressed."

Counter tried to remember back as well but he had to admit in the heat of the moment none of them had even thought of the probability that Outride would simply toss his weapons and surrender. Well, none of them had been police mechs before the war – aside from Diode and he had been a low ranked traffic cop, if his file was correct. It couldn't be helped, it wasn't every day they had to hunt down spies after all, Primus be thanked.

"Let me ask something else then," the pesky lawyer went on, looking all full of himself. "Did you know before seeing what my client's acid gun was capable off?"

"Yes. I knew the specs of his inbuilt squirt gun from previous medical scans, where it had not been loaded though. I was also one of the medics who treated Low-Key for acid poisoning, where just a few drops of the acid had been diluted in a cube of energon, and I knew the strength of the base solution the science mechs prepared to counter the hydrafloric acid that had been used for sabotage twice on the Macron Gamma base before. I was on that capture mission specifically for possible emergency treatments like I performed on Outride himself in the end, because no mech hit by a full cartridge of that acid, would have made it back to base before melting into a nasty pile of rusted slag."

"I remind the witness to use a proper language," the judge cut in but the attorney didn't wait even for a moment to throw next question on Welder.

"And with all that knowledge of the weapon and the acid and with your mission objective to prevent the acid-burn, you still redirected the gun right to the defendant's face-plate? Not into another direction? How did you feel about that?"

"Since I was standing directly behind him at that time and was yanking the arm towards the both of us, as of opposed to showing it into the direction of the three Autobots in front of us, with me being the only medic capable of treating the injuries, I was ready to say my greetings to Primus in the Matrix after the last and likely most agonizing breems of my life."

That confession surprised Paragraph slightly but only for a moment.

"So you're saying, you didn't have any hard feelings toward the defendant? Neither you nor the other Autobots who thought of him as a comrade before he had gotten exposed? Can the witness describe the moods the mechas chosen for this mission were in? What were their reactions upon seeing Outride?"

"Oh, we were all angry at him, though I maybe less for personal reasons but for Low-Key's state at that time. Not that a single mecha on base would have felt any differently though, and the alternate would have been letting him simply escape back to the Cons with whatever intel he had stolen. Besides, I think everyone on the team held back remarkably, because we didn't simply shoot him dead at first sight."

"In that case, I have no more questions," the attorney said with a small smile. "I think we all already heard enough to know that the Autobots weren't there to simply arrest the defendant – they were there to get their revenge, driven by anger and bitterness. I think under those circumstances it is understandable that my client reacted with violence. All alone, trapped in a dark place with those hostile mecha... It does not make him innocent, no, but all I'm asking for is taking his emotional state into consideration, your Honor."

oOo

The last witness to be called in was the most problematic in Counter's opinion so he watched with mixed feelings as Detalus stepped up to the witness stand with a blank expression on his faceplate.

The old mech had felt betrayed and had been enraged, no doubt, but he also had had ample time to calm down and brood over the entire ordeal. The question was, would his testimony be influenced by his feelings?

So far Detalus was only repeating what Welder had said from his own point of view. Some of the questions following were also a repeat of those that Welder had been asked. The prosecutor was pointing out Outride's cruel deeds while the defense obviously still tried to paint the events in the warehouse to having been entirely the Autobot pursuers' fault.

Finally moving on to the slightly different subject the lawyer inquired: "Which sort of mech was Outride on base when you worked with him daily."

Counter could see the elder mech's small chest-plate rising as he took a deep vent before answering.

"He was... He seemed to be just like everybot else. A bit more ambitious than the others maybe. He was quick to learn, always helpful, always polite. He didn't give me any reasons to doubt his good intentions. I caught him on not telling me the full truth one or two times but I misinterpreted it as an act of solidarity with the other soldiers. I didn't notice, and I probably should have, that he had not a single close friend, only tons of bots who he chatted with, treating them all the same."

To Counter Balance those words sounded, as if the Old Turbo-fox felt guilty for not noticing anything suspicious and even if Counter fully understood that, is still was unnecessary – those sly liars like Outride always worked like that, acting all nice and sweet before stabbing your back when you least expected it. Detalus wasn't the one to blame here. The lawyer, however didn't even notice the obvious hint of guilt in the old mech's voice.

"But did you notice any signs of violent or cruel behavior from him?"

"No, I didn't. During the last two solar cycles there was no incident like that, not even once."

"Nevertheless, you were ready to hunt the mech down when he ran away and didn't protest when the team you were on – a team whose highest ranking officer you were – tried to forcefully apprehend the defendant without giving him an opportunity to surrender first?" Paragraph jumped at the opening opportunity.

"I am a tactician, not a police mech. We usually don't give the Decepticons a fair warning before we start a surprise attack. It helps keeping our own troops alive." Detalus gave the attorney a stern look as if to dare him to comment on that.

The mech was smart enough not to push on that anymore. It looked like he wanted to say 'I have no more questions' when suddenly the master tactician added: "However, I admit that I made a mistake. It was me who chose Outride from among all the other candidates for my assistant and thereby allowed him easier access to the information he collected for the Decepticons. I didn't bother to ask for more solid background checks for the candidates, nor for additional psychological evaluation or any cpu-checkups. Had I done so, and found out earlier that Outride's programming has a malfunctioning in his conscience code, none of the later events would have happened."

That made the entire court room go silent instantly.

Counter Balance could only shake his helm at that admission, all the viewers seemed shocked as well – not because the old mech claimed that Outride had some sort of flawed programming (in the opinion of the Autobots most of the Decepticons were glitches one way or another) but because the master tactician felt responsible for missing something none of them had noticed in all the time the Con had lived in their midst. Surprisingly enough, Counter saw that the one who was most perplexed of the mecha in the room seemed to be Outride himself.

Meanwhile, the lawyer realized the opportunity just opening up and shook off his own confusion at once.

"Does the witness suggest that the defendant should rather be sent for treatment than imprisoned?"

"Objection!" The prosecutor called out sounding quite angry. "The medical expertise clearly shows that the defendant's malfunction does not make him unable of making decisions, thus he is fully responsible for his actions!"

"Objection sustained," the judge calmly said. "In the medical report we read: the defendant was diagnosed of empathic feedback deficiency which is characterized by a long term pattern of disregard for the rights and well-being of others and an impoverished moral sense. No intellectual skills are being affected by it, which means that ability to make choices is not in question."

"As we just heard: "long term patterns" and yet the witness as his superior have never noticed anything and stated that the defendant seemed to be just like everybot else. But if the witness had known about the defendant's malfunction earlier, what would you have done?" Paragraph inquired. "And why, if I may ask."

"His condition would obviously have disqualified him from applying to be an officer and giving commands. However, who says his condition is incurable? If I had known of it, I'd have offered help. Faulty programming could be slowly corrected by therapy or if he had decided for it by a program upgrade. That is a chance he never had because I failed to provide it."

Counter didn't believe his audials. Was the old mech Detalus really this naive? Outride had done his best to hide whatever malfunction he had from everyone simply because it worked in his favor, he didn't want any help. And the old mech was going too far with this self-blaming.

It was an outdated view, that the commanding officer took the blame for his subordinates' fails, but then Detalus was obviously a very old mech who had probably been onlined with that sort of processorset. To his own chagrin Counter could actually understand it somewhat – he had to make excuses to his own superiors for his team's crazy stunts often enough after all. Yet he couldn't imagine ever going this far for a proven traitor.

Judging by the murmur rising in volume on the gallery of onlookers, the younger generation of soldiers was not able to comprehend this idea either.

Paragraph seized the opportunity to speak again as the room calmed down since technically at least it was still his turn: "Your Honor, as the witness said, the defendant deserves a chance. A therapy could still be applied while he serves a sentence, and he might end as a normal member of society after the war."

Veto snorted theatrically at that: "A normal member of society? After a therapy? Your Honor, nothing but a reprogramming would accomplish that and my colleague knows that reprogramming against a patient's will is illegal. The defendant showed no interest in reprogramming. Send him to a normal prison with such a re-socialization system and he would play his act, fool the therapist and then after being released early for 'showing his good will' a cold sparked murderer would be unleashed on society once again. He'd probably run right back to the Decepticons to decimate said society further."

"Your Honor," the attorney spoke up, "my colleague is trying to insinuate that the defendant still feels any loyalty to the Decepticons but I will prove that is not true. So let me ask the witness about that. Master Detalus," he turned to the old mech in the witness stand, "you happened to be one of the few mecha allowed to talk with the defendant after his interrogation, please tell us what were his thoughts on the Cons' cause. Is that true that he was willing to collaborate with the Autobots?"

"Yes, he was willing to do that. He even offered it himself, before he heard about the possibility of a prisoner exchange," Detalus replied and Counter wondered about his neutral tone. Normally someone speaking for a defendant should sound more eagerly? But then the old mech must know that such an offer from Outride only meant that the spy had tried to barter his way out of prison and that he'd probably have eagerly gone back to the Decepticons just like the prosecutor had stated.

But the judge actually looked thoughtful now – would he be swayed by this little information?

"And after he heard of said exchange?" Paragraph kept pursuing this issue much to Counter's annoyance.

"We don't have the custom of informing our prisoners about the results of negotiations. If he heard of the exchange, it was not from me but afterwards from the other Decepticon prisoner, whom we had in the same cellblock."

"Thank you for your explanation," the lawyer replied politely and addressed the judge next. "The defendant indeed heard of that failed exchange from the other Decepticon and his reaction got recorded by the security camera. Your Honor, if we play it right here and right now, everybot will see that the defendant's return into the Con ranks is very unlikely."

oOo

They had to watch the vid then of course.

Outride had been happy at first, hearing of the exchange, eager to go back but then… Counter had never seen so much hatred on a mecha's faceplate like that on the spy's when he got told he was rejected. And that string of curses… Counter actually learned a few new words. "Well, there goes any chance for the defense to suggest anger-management," the spec ops commander thought quietly.

No surprise Outride had looked somewhat nervous when his lawyer had brought that surveillance tape up, he had probably not even realized that tantrum would have been recorded. Or at least he'd expected it to be a mute video like the normal prison surveillance, he wouldn't have known that spies got an extra treatment.

oOo

The past few joors seemed like a nightmarish recharge vision to him. All that time Outride had stood quietly in front of the court listening to Autobots talking about him. And now those Autobots would decide on his life and death as if it was nothing important. They would decide over his fate and he was powerless to stop them. Oh, how he loathed being powerless!

This slimy energon-leech who dared to call himself the prosecutor just began his final speech, underlining that Acrid had joined the Decepticon faction willingly after having been rescued from the ruins of Simfur by Autobot troops. Then having pretended to join the Autobot army with the single objective in mind to serve as a deep cover spy for the enemy and damage the Autobots and their cause to protect Cybertron and its neutral citizens as much as possible. For all his crimes, the damned prosecution demanded the death penalty for him.

Hearing that, Outride's whole frame filled with dread. The Autobots were really going to offline him.

He lowered his gaze, he could see his cuffed servos trembling slightly.

Then, his good-for-nothing lawyer gave his final speech trying to suggest that Outride had joined the Decepticons while suffering a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder and that his malfunction did not allow him to be grateful to the Autobots who had saved him in Simfur. The fact that he was never reported on any act of violence during his service until the fatal orn of his arrest which went wrong due to irresponsibility of his captors, also the fact that he offered to collaborate with the Autobots more than once and later on didn't caused trouble during the prosecutor's interrogation – all of those were supposed to be extenuating circumstances that should mitigate the penalty. And Outride hoped they would, else... Else he could start praying to Primus already.

The defense demanded a war-long stasis imprisonment with an obligatory re-socialization program afterwards, the mecha on the audience scoffed or hissed at that and Outride also didn't like the idea of being out for Primus-knows how long.

The judge had to finally slam the gavel down to call the court back to order, but he didn't leave it at that: "I have come to a decision!" he announced.

Outride felt how his entire frame tensed up.

"The defendant's guilt in case of the convoy ambush could not be proven. As for those crimes he has pleaded guilty for, given that his emotional programming is unhinged, this court will not impose an execution over him."

That was...a victory! He wanted to laugh, wanted to jump for joy, wanted to...

"However," the judge's words stopped his train of thought, "stasis imprisonment followed by therapy is only promising to drain energon-resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. The defendant is hereby sentenced to forced labor in a high security energon-mining camp until the end of war, then a civilian court may take up his case again to decide, if and how he is to be reintegrated into society depending on the display of his character."

Instead of exploding in a red veil of fury like he had done in that jail cell, Outride felt all his anger go cold and accumulate like a block of lead in his tanks.

A mining camp? That was a job for stupid vehicon drones. He could survive that and at least he wouldn't be stored away in a pod like some defective equipment that no-one had the time to repair.

He didn't resist as the guards led him out of the room and back to his cell to await the transport to his new 'home'. In fact, he almost wanted to smirk. The Autobots had made a dire mistake this orn, not sentencing him for an execution. And the Decepticons had made an even worse mistake throwing him out like a piece of trash.

Outride didn't look back, he didn't need to – Counter Balance, TiltShift, Tarpit and Starscream, even that glitch Piffpaff – he had burned their designations into his long-term memory core. He wanted to remember the mecha who had destroyed his life.

There would come an orn for them to pay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...

"'Let's get going, time's a-wastin'," he urged the guards.

His orn of revenge would come, it would come for sure.

* * *

This is the final chapter of our big spy-themed story!

Thank you for staying with us and with our characters for so long! Please, tell us what you think about the whole thing, now when you know how it ends.

Merry Christmas!


End file.
